The Companion Chronicles
by Loki Milano
Summary: My name is Daisy. I'm sixteen and a half and I live in London with my mum and dad, our dog Marcel and just occasionally my sister, Rose.
1. The Other Tyler

The Other Tyler

The Other Tyler

My name is Daisy. I'm sixteen and a half and I live in London with my mum and dad, our dog Marcel and just occasionally my sister, Rose.

I'm the second child in the family, but since I was four I have more or less grown up as an only child. Granted, my sister is (technically) twenty years older than me, and expected to have her own life, but the reasons behind my solo upbringing are not so easily explained. At first, the two of us were very close, but after my fourth birthday, the 1st July in case you're interested. I started seeing less and less of my sister.

My mum Jackie put it down to a special project in Torchwood, the company which Rose was the head of. They told me it dealt in electronics, but even as a child I don't think I completely believed them. I accepted that, because at first it was only one or two days that she was gone for. But then the days turned in to weeks at a time, then months, then she was away more than she was at home, and I had no idea where she went.

I would often have strange dreams where I was with her in various parts of London and around the country; occasionally we also seemed to be on different planets. But that wasn't possible, as my mum and dad told me when I informed them about my strange night-time adventures. I did notice they were completely silent whenever I was telling them what was going on though.

I could tell my mum and dad were worried although they kept on being cheerful and upbeat in front of me, but children have that scary ability to see straight through people and more than once I pressed them about where my sister was and why she was never home for Christmas or my birthday.

"She's just busy with work, love." answered my mother.

When I hit twelve, my dreams got more intense and more obscure. I was always somewhere with my sister, who strangely enough never seemed to age, but there was this man there, tall, skinny, messy brown hair, glasses, and a pinstriped suit. She always just missed him, or just kept out of the way if they ended up in the same place. Heaven only knows why. It seemed so real though.

I hadn't seen my sister in four years. I've got used to it. I didn't really miss her anymore, or at least I told myself I didn't. If anything, I was angry with her. As cliché as it is, when you get to my age, you sometimes just wish you had an older sister to talk things through with, someone who had been there before and who would be on your side when you were up against the parents. I was left to my own devices.

It was about one o'clock in the morning, and I was half asleep doing my Geography GCSE Coursework. I found school incredibly easy, but also incredibly boring because of that. My parents were out at some kind of pre-wedding party with the people from Torchwood, my dad worked there too. I was just about dozing off at my desk, when Marcel starting barking furiously, it was raining too, very horror-movie esque.

"Daft dog, what the heck is it?" I muttered.

She was downstairs and I flicked on the lights as I made my way to the kitchen, where the noise was coming from. She came running out to me, being a Border collie she was pretty fast, and almost knocked me over, I grabbed her collar to quieten her down, and then froze. I could hear someone at the back door, fiddling with the lock. I froze. My parents would never come in the back door.

I was immensely glad to have a dog with me as I grabbed my hockey stick from by the piano, which mum had told me to take to my room five weeks ago, but never mind that, and tiptoed into the kitchen.

"Who's there? I'll call the police!" I called; I could hear my own voice shaking.

The lock stopped being played with, and I breathed a sigh of relief as things fell silent, I seemed to have scared whoever it was away. Then I saw a figure through the frosted glass, and a chill went down my spine. I couldn't believe what I heard just then.

"Daisy? Is that you?" came a very familiar voice after a moment.

I paused, "…Rose?"

I ran forward, Marcel at my heels and unlocked the door. She hadn't changed at all. Even her red jacket was the same as it had been four years ago. She was supposed to be two decades older than me, but she seemed only about eight years my senior. Her short blonde hair was soaking wet, she was shivering and though I had always known her to be taller, we were now exactly the same height.

"How old are you now?" she asked through chattering teeth. She always judged when she was by my age.

"Sixteen, seventeen in six months."

"You've grown."

"You haven't."

As I peered at her under the porch light, I saw that her hazel eyes, the same colour as mine, were red and puffy, she had been crying, a hell of a lot by the looks of it. I frowned and leaned forward.

"Rose? What's wrong?" I queried.

"It happened." Her voice broke.

"What happened?" I was worried now.

"Everything."

The next minute she had thrown herself at me and was clinging to me, sobbing her heart out and drenching me in the middle of the kitchen. She was so cold. Marcel was sniffing around us, but quiet, as if she picked up on the tension in the room. It took about ten minutes of me hugging Rose and desperately trying to warm her up before she managed to regain herself enough for me to lead her through to the living room and sit her down after I closed Marcel in the conservatory.

"Tea?" I asked, complete at a loss as to what else to say.

She was still crying, but she laughed quietly, "You sound just like mum."

"Oh, God." I pulled a face, and she laughed again. I pride myself on cheering people up.

Maybe fifteen minutes later and though I couldn't believe I was seeing my prodigal sister again after four years, we were sitting in the living room with cups of tea, and I'd given her my dressing gown to warm her up. She had more or less calmed down, although her face was still blotchy and she was virtually sitting on my lap, funny that, as she was the one with the habit of disappearing.

"Where are mum and dad?" she asked.

"Some Torchwood function." I shrugged, "They'll be over the moon to see you though."

Her face blanched, "You can't tell them I'm here!" she said urgently.

"_What!?_"

"I came back because I needed to see _you_."

"That doesn't make things any more sense. My whole life it's been you, mum and dad in your own little club without telling me what's going on. Why should you come back after four years just to see _me_?"

I was rather irritated at that, I had to admit. I knew something was going on, and by now I'd worked out that Torchwood was not an electronics company, but it didn't explain why my sister kept disappearing. She was considerate enough to look embarrassed, or maybe it was guilty, I wasn't sure.

"It's complicated." She wouldn't meet my eye.

"It's alien, isn't it?" I said, matter-of-fact. She looked surprised.

"How did…"

I rolled my eyes, "It's called the internet. I found out about Torchwood and everything the year after you vanished. Mum and dad don't know."

"What do you mean everything?" she asked, cautious.

"The year before I was born, big robot invasion thing, killed thousands of people. Torchwood helped stop it." I shrugged.

"That's all?" she seemed relieved.

"There's more."

It was then I got the shock of my life. She started talking about a big war, time and space being torn apart, parallel worlds, rifts and someone called The Doctor. She told me that she wasn't from this world, and when she had been just a few years older than me this man had blown up her job, then taken her to the end of the world and back. She told me about all the things she had seen and I could scarcely believe what I was hearing. When she finished I just stared at her.

"I think the cold's affected your brain." I scoffed.

"You think so?" she argued, "Then explain why I haven't changed at all since the last time you saw me, four years ago."

She had me there, much to my annoyance. As everything sunk in, I realised how much sense it made, however weird the whole circumstance was. She looked at me then, so intensely as she held my hands and stared into my eyes, that it made me uncomfortable. From reading between the lines, I could tell there was more to the story.

I sighed, resigned. "What happened?"

"I had to say goodbye." There was a strange expression on her face. "I never thought I would see him again. Nothing ever hurt me so much as that reality."

I stared at her. "You loved him."

She turned to me, smiling sadly, and nodded. "Still do. Always will."

"That still doesn't explain why you suddenly started disappearing when I was younger."

She nodded in agreement. "I didn't understand myself at first. I just started feeling dizzy, and then the next thing I knew, I'd be in a completely different place." She shrugged, "At first it was just for a split second or so, and I thought I was imagining things, working too hard and everything. Then it lasted two or three days, and the periods got longer and longer. I had no idea what was going on, until one time, just for a moment, I saw…him."

"The Doctor." I finished.

"I realised I was going back to my world." It sounded so strange to me. "Every place I went, I was just missing him, or if I didn't, I had to hide, because I didn't want things to get screwed up."

"You've been flicking between parallel dimensions for four years. I think things are already screwed up." I pointed out. Then I remembered something. "It's just like my dreams."

She stared at me, suddenly alarmed. "Dreams?"

I nodded, "Yea, since I was a kid. I always dreamed, I was with you, god knows where, it always seemed so real though."

She was suddenly quiet. There was something she was holding back. "I was afraid something like that might happen."

"You _were_?"

"I told you I wasn't from here originally, right?" No arguing there. "I think it's the instability in my DNA or something that made me slip between the worlds, because I'd done it all before. Things have become unstable. There's a big problem in space and time, and it has repercussions."

"Um, back to the point?"

"Well…mum isn't from here either."

"Say what?"

"She came through with me."

"And you didn't mention this before _why_?" now I was angry.

"It didn't seem to be necessary." She answered lamely.

"So, if mum isn't from this world, what about dad?"

"He is."

"Come again?"

"He is, from this world. That makes you…"

"Half from another bloody universe?!" I cried.

"Which means…your DNA must be unstable too."

"Well that's just marvellous!"

Of all the things I expected to hear from my sister when she finally returned, me being half from one universe and half from another was not on the top of my list. Then again, neither was her accidentally slipping through a rift in space and time. Or, in fact, a rift in space and time itself. What did this all mean then? Space and time was screwed up, but why? Just how and why exactly was Rose being called to another dimension?

As if reading my mind she suddenly teared up again, "The Doctor is in trouble. Big trouble."

"But how do you know? Why were _you_ specifically being called? From what I've learned, mum and dad have corrupt DNA too."

"I think it's the TARDIS. She's calling me back."

"Who's Tardis?"

"Not who. She's his ship, The Doctor's ship. She's calling me to help." She looked at me, and my stomach dropped as she started crying again, "He's been erased from space and time."

Call me selfish, but even I was worried then. Not because of the heroic stories she had told me about him saving the world, him technically being the reason for my existence, or his taste for teaching the bad guys a lesson, but because Rose was my sister and Rose loved this Doctor, and him not being around made her cry. I stood up, and offered my hand to her.

"You better get going then. The love of your life needs saving and a spaceship is calling the cavalry." I decided. "Before mum and dad come back."

She stared at me, in shock or amazement I'm not sure, or is that the same thing? But she grabbed my hand and I pulled her up. I lead her to my room and grabbed a piece of paper from my notebook.

"What are you doing?" she asked, "I don't know how to get back…it just sort of happens."

So for once, I was way ahead of my sister. I turned off my computer and scribbled a letter on the piece of paper. She read it over my shoulder and her eyes widened.

"Daisy, you can't be serious." She protested.

"Never been more serious in my life."

I pinned it to my keyboard, and grabbed the small bag I had packed, I was meant to be staying over at a friend's tomorrow night. Lucky that. I smiled confidently at her, and she just gave me a strange look, like she was meeting me for the first time.

"Rose Tyler, defender of the Earth, let's go, shall we?"

Putting my bag on my back, I grabbed her hand. The second I did, I suddenly felt dizzy, and by the tightening of her grasp, she did too. My bedroom dissolved in front of my eyes, and I was suddenly outside in an alley.

Ten minutes after we'd left, my mum came into my room.

_Dear Mum and Dad,_

_Rose needs me. I'll be back. Love you._

_Daisy x_

She yelled for my dad and clutched his hand as he read the letter. Sorry mum, sorry dad, but I'd been called for duty. Rose looked aghast at me as we stood in that alley, like she couldn't quite believe I was really there. Heck, I couldn't believe it.

"Why did you do that?" she demanded.

"It's obvious, isn't it? I had the dreams because I have the screwy DNA too and I might be able to help. Don't look at me like that."

"But…"

"Rose, listen to me. Friends come and go, lovers come and go, family comes and goes. Sisters are stuck with each other, period."

She smiled at me, and I was suddenly aware of a group of people walking towards us, a weird mixture of people. There was a middle-aged woman with brown hair, a journalist's note pad and a metal dog at her feet, a tall man in a long dark blue coat with some funky watch on his wrist, a woman around my sister's age in a doctor's coat, and a slightly older woman with red hair.

"Rose. You're back." It was the lone man. He looked like he was in the army or something. He looked at me, "Who's this?"

"This is my sister…" replied Rose, dazed.

I stepped forward and beamed at them, "Hi cavalry, my name is Daisy. Let's go save the world shall we?"


	2. Bits and Pieces

Bits and Pieces

Bits and Pieces

Where was I? Oh yes, I'd just been reunited with my sister who had been absent for four years, and now we were standing in a whole other universe to what I was used to, surrounded by an assortment of four people who were complete strangers to me, and a tin dog. Plus, my sister was wearing my dressing gown, and I was in my pyjamas. A vest top and tracksuit bottoms, so it wasn't obvious to them of course, but I knew. So did my sister, and she smirked, but I glared at her.

"How old are you?" asked the woman with the dog, she seemed rather concerned. I liked her, sort of reminded me of my favourite aunt.

"She's sixteen." answered my sister, Rose.

"And a half!" I added, indignant. I smiled at the woman, "Don't worry, I can hold my own." I turned to the others, "So, who are all of you then?"

Apparently they were Sarah-Jane Smith, some kind of journalist turned alien investigator, and the robot dog introduced himself as K-9 IV, which scared the heck out of me, and they all laughed at me. Next was Captain Jack Harkness, the head of Torchwood (which thoroughly confused me, until they explained it was parallel Torchwood. I was going to have a hard time getting my head around all this) based in Cardiff of all places.

The doctor was Martha Jones who worked for UNIT. Yet another alien-based agency. She hugged me in greeting and even said that when this was all sorted out I should come to her wedding. I think Rose was a bit jealous though, judging by the fact she stepped up next to me.

Finally the red-haired woman, who seemed kind of bossy and stubborn, but nice enough, was Donna Noble, the last person to travel with this Doctor. I wondered just how many people he had travelled with, but I figured it would probably be insensitive to ask, considering Rose pursed her lips slightly.

Once that was all out of the way I realised I had no clue exactly what had happened to make The Doctor disappear, or how we were going to fix it, or if I would be able to change out of my jim-jams, but everyone else was thinking the same. Well, perhaps not the jim-jams part.

"OK, what do we do now we're all acquainted?" I asked.

Damned if I was gonna take control, I was technically the tag along from a parallel world, which is not something I ever thought I would call myself. Then a whole myriad of things happened as everyone started speaking at once. It started raining, what was it with the atmosphere and waterworks where I was concerned, some kind of blue box appeared and almost landed on me, K-9 started beeping, and all of them seemed to want to go in a different direction.

"What in the world?" I jumped out of the way, and Rose caught me as I over balanced.

"Who's driving?!" cried Sarah-Jane.

"I think we should…" chorused Rose and Jack. They stopped, and looked at each other.

"I'll go first…" they chorused again, I smothered a giggle and Donna rolled her eyes.

"Might I remind you that The Doctor is gone and we don't know how to get him back." said Martha boldly. "This is not the time to argue over leadership."

"Exactly, The Doctor is gone, but the TARDIS is being driven. It might be a trap." pointed out Donna.

Then they all started debating what should and shouldn't happen, who should be in charge and comparing their merits with each other, where they had been and what they had done. Quite frankly, I was amazed that adults could act like children when someone's life was in danger, and we were all getting wet.

I searched around for some kind of ally and my eyes rested on K-9. He looked at me and I shrugged, wandering away whilst the 'grown ups' had their brawl. I'd never seen a spaceship before and I didn't much like the wary looks passers-by gave the group. I quietly pushed open the door and slipped inside.

"Wow." I said, not sure quite who I was talking to.

I could scarce believe what I was seeing, although I had seen it before, in my dreams. I wasn't paying attention as I investigated. I must have leant on something as I looked up, because the next thing I knew, something sprang to life behind me. I spun around and a man was looking at the TARDIS controls, although he was semi-transparent. A ghost? God, aliens were bad enough. Then he looked at me, and I recognised him. It was the infamous Doctor. His eyes looked so old and sad that I was knocked speechless.

"You found us then." He said.

Stupidly, I looked over my shoulder to see who he was talking to, and there was nobody else there. "Um, yes?"

"What's your name?"

"I, er, I'm Daisy."

He grinned, "Rose and Daisy, Jackie must have been on the ball."

"You know my mum?"

"Oh yes. Quite well."

"I don't understand. You're The Doctor, right?"

"Yes." He hesitated. "Well, sort of."

"But, you're meant to have been…erased."

"Therein lays the problem."

"What happened?"

He leaned (I think…he was transparent, could he lean?) against the control panel and I leaned on the bars by the door, in my surprise I'd backed away from him, I wasn't aware of how far before I grabbed the bars behind me, I had a habit of fiddling with things when I was still. Then he started his story. There was an alien race around, called the Inanis. Their job was to patrol time and space, to keep things under control as best they could. I told him, I thought that was his job, and he looked a little sheepish.

"In an unofficial capacity, yes. But the thing is." He continued.

The Inanis were designed to correct any infractions in the time-space continuum in a far more humane way than the Reapers, a similar race who had been put out of business. The problem was that The Doctor's dealings had accidentally caused a good number of those infractions, including a huge rift in time and space leading to the disappearance of several planets and the merging of several dimensions that really shouldn't have merged. They decided the only way to fix everything was to erase the root of the problem. I did not like the sound of that.

"Oh, come on. You can't have been the only reason! You were trying to help. The universe imploding was hardly your fault." I argued.

He looked solemn then, and his eyes were dark. "Oh, but it was. I just didn't know when to leave well enough alone, I couldn't resist dabbling."

"If I was in your position, I couldn't either." I declared.

"As a Time Lord, I should have known better. But I'm paying for it now."

"That's so unfair!"

"Thanks for your support." He gave a wry laugh.

"That doesn't explain how I'm talking to you though. If you've been erased…then what exactly am I talking to?"

He got all serious again and wouldn't meet my eye. Completely forgetting about anything else I walked over and stood next to him, as if I could do a thing to help. I was the newcomer to all this, why was he telling me everything? Perhaps it was easier to talk to somebody with no expectations. I didn't know him, how could I judge him.

"I'm just an echo, a whisper, a memory, a shadow. Whatever I am, I'm not here. Not the whole of me anyway, and it feels so empty." I don't know why he added that last part.

"Well, then we need to pull you back together, don't we?"

"You shouldn't, Daisy. I shouldn't even be standing with you now. The Inanis do what they do for good reason."

"I'm sure we can make an exception. I'm not having my sister in pieces over you, thank you very much. Not to mention, you have a group of people out there from who knows where who want you back. I've done nothing substantial in my life and it's about time I changed that."

"How old are you?"

"Why does everyone keep asking me that?!" I cried.

"You have your whole life ahead of you. If you do this, it could end before it has even begun. You'd best just let me go."

"There are more important things than me in the universe, and I'm only just discovering them. I think I'll risk it."

He laughed again, "You're so much like Rose…"

"Listen Doc. If you don't tell me, I sure as hell will find out what to do some other way. You want to take that chance?"

He looked thoughtful then, stared at me long and hard, and I forced myself not to waver. I was breaking him down, we both knew it. Eventually he sighed. He pressed some ghostly keys on the control pad, and I had to shield my eyes as a brilliant gold light, focused in one spot filled the entire area. He held his hand out, and something sort of hovered over it, a lot more solid than him. It was a fine gold chain, and on it was a single gemstone, dark red, around the size of a marble, flat and beautiful. It floated over to me, and I reached for it, it fell into my palm, silent, but definitely solid.

"Some time ago, I was worried something bad might happen. So I started a kind of programme on the intergalactic wide web if you will. In this little stone is a part of me, a little of my soul I suppose. There are nine of them in total. You find these and I imagine it might build me up again, piece by piece."

"Easy!" I declared, happy.

There was a short silence. "Not easy. I don't know where they are, or what they are. They could be hidden by people, places or objects. I have no idea. I don't even know where this one came from. I just know that until about half an hour ago, it didn't exist, and neither did I. Now it does."

I knew. It had to be. The first stone had to have been Rose's. He had her heart completely, and we had landed here around half an hour ago. If anyone would remember The Doctor that well, it would be her. So technically, I was holding a little piece of The Doctor in my hand and a little piece of Rose too, they fitted perfectly together, like they were meant for each other. I didn't realise how long I had been silent, until he looked at me with concern.

"Daisy, are you alright?"

I looked up, much to my embarrassment my eyes were watering, but I blinked them a few times to clear them up, "Just peachy Doc. So basically, we better find the rest of these. Shouldn't be too hard, we have a spaceship slash time machine after all." I put on a grin.

"Do you realise how dangerous this could be?" he sounded like he was an older brother or something. "You don't know what's out there Daisy. It could be fatal."

"I said it once and I'll say it again. I think I'll risk it. My sister's worth it, and so is the whole bloody universe." _We owe you this much._ I added in my head.

I think we had a moment then, we looked at each other, and it was like my whole life and all my thoughts were laid bear in front of him, and you know something? I didn't care. It was a relief to share some of the things buzzing around in my all too overactive mind. I think he shared with me too. I got glimpses of his friends, his family, his hopes and his fears. He tried to close them off, but he couldn't.

He was standing so close to me, looking down. He was far taller than me. He held out his hand, and I reached for it, but I went completely through him. I think I sort of understood how Rose had felt then, that day on the beach she told me about. I didn't love him in that way, but he amazed me, and I suddenly wanted to protect him, to help him. I had the strangest feeling the weird assembly outside felt just the same way too.

"Daisy, promise me something." He said suddenly.

Right then, I think I would have promised him the world. "What?"

"If things get too risky, stop. Don't lose yourself. Just forget about me, alright? Go on with your life, and live a long and happy one." I answered him with silence. I don't think it was a promise I could keep. "Please. I can't go through that again." He pleaded.

"I'll do my best." I finally replied.

Abruptly, he seemed to start fading away, turning in to a little trail of gold dust that floated up in a spiral. I suddenly didn't want him to go. I couldn't imagine anything worse just then. I realised what it would have been like for Rose. Poor Rose, no wonder she looked so haunted when she came to me in the dark.

"And remember Daisy. You're so much like Rose, but don't forget you're not her."

The gold dust I noticed was suddenly seeping into the necklace that I held in my hand, it looked like he might stick around after all. Moments later and he was gone. I was left in the control room, which suddenly seemed very cold, very dark and very empty. I heard voices outside and it brought me back to reality. I clipped the necklace around my neck.

"Hey! Where did Daisy go?!" it was Rose, panicking.

"She is in the TARDIS." responded K-9's robotic voice.

"What?! Who knows what's in there?!" it was Jack…he sounded amazingly concerned.

All five of them suddenly burst into the control room, K-9 rolling in at their heels. Jack had his gun out and Sarah-Jane was pointing a…lipstick…at me. Rose and Martha ran forward to me, checking me for injuries I think, and looking as worried as each other. What, had I suddenly gained another sister too? Rose grabbed my wrists and started scolding me.

"Don't run off like that! Who knows what might have happened to you!" she shouted at me.

"It could have been dangerous!" Martha backed her up.

"Calm down. She's fine, not a scratch on her. See?" Donna relieved Rose of one of my hands and held it up as proof. I shot her a look of gratitude.

"You were in here a while, what happened?" queried Sarah-Jane.

"And what's that?" Jack walked forward and Rose stepped aside, although still linking her arm through mine, as he held the necklace in his hand.

"If you'd let me get a word in, I would explain." I huffed.

So I did. I told them that I'd seen The Doctor, sort of, and he had told me what happened and what we had to do. I did not however mention our little heart to heart, or the fact that his almost-ghost seemed to be kind of hanging around my neck and I didn't pass on the message he had given to me. They were all completely silent, enthralled. I felt rather guilty that of all these people, who had clearly been through a lot more with each other and him than I had, I was the one who had unofficially found him.

The more I thought about it, the more amazing it seemed. Here we were, bits and pieces of various ages, experiences and personalities, and we had to piece together bits of a Lord of Time. How on Earth, or even not, come to that, had we ended up together? The universe(s) worked in very peculiar ways.

"Well." said Donna after a while, "I think we've solved the leadership problem." Much to my horror, she looked at _me_.

"No. No way in hell, or anywhere else." I backed away from them, knocking into the control panel.

"She's right. I think you sort of win by default." shrugged Martha.

"Affirmative." chirped K-9.

"Look, I don't want to be a leader or whatever. I'm the least qualified of anyone. Might I suggest we just work together, as a team?" I ventured.

They seemed quite happy with that. The next problem was where we were going to go first. The TARDIS made up our minds for us, because much to my complete astonishment, and the mild surprise of the other assembled, the engines started up, and the ship started shaking.

"Where is it taking us?" asked Martha.

Jack looked at the computer screen. "Um, 1963 apparently…Totter's Lane??"


	3. Junkyard Blues

Junkyard Blues

Junkyard Blues

After a particularly bumpy ride, during which I must confess, I clung on to my sister's hand for dear life, like a big baby, we finally landed with a thud and the six of us, plus K9 picked ourselves up and regained our composure. It was a little easier now I was in my own clothes, during the flight Rose and Martha had shown me where the wardrobe was. It was huge! I suggested opening a department store, and although I meant it as a joke, they seemed to seriously consider it.

It was fun looking at all the things he had gathered. I found this really long scarf and tried it on in front of a three-part mirror, was The Doctor vain or something? It was all lit up like at a fashion show, I grabbed a sort of straw hat near it and put it on, then for the hell of it a black leather jacket. I stared at myself and giggled.

"Not really my colour, huh?" I turned to the others.

They looked all anxious and weird, and when I asked them what was wrong they admitted they didn't think I should be playing with The Doctor's things in case he liked them in a particular order. I realised that maybe they didn't like being surrounded by all the reminders of the friend they had lost. It _was_ a little insensitive of me. I stopped playing.

"Hey, don't worry, ok?" I put a hand each on their arms, "Won't be long until we get him back, cross my heart." I waved them along, and they seemed relieved, "I'll catch up with you, alright?"

They walked out and I finally managed to put on my own clothes. As I looked in the mirror to retie the plait in my hair my mouth dropped open. The Doctor, in all his luminous hologram-like glory was standing behind me. I spun around, and there was no-one there. Yet when I turned back to the mirror, he was looking at me.

"I don't really exist, remember?" he reminded me. "You can only see me because of that necklace. You can hear me for the same reason."

"What?! You're like _in my head_?!" That was so not good.

"Not as such, more on the same wavelength. I see you've been enjoying yourself."

He nodded at the reflection of the clothes I had been trying on, which I'd neatly folded on a chair before I put them away. I shrugged, sheepishly. Busted. Maybe they had been right after all.

"Don't worry." he smiled at me, thank god, "I sometimes do the same…but don't tell anyone." He winked.

"Promise."

"Daisy? Daisy, what's taking so long?" it was Rose.

I turned back to the mirror, he was still there, "I better go."

He sighed discreetly, but I caught it. I felt for him, it must be very lonely, not existing. "Yes, you better." He put on a cheerful face. "And Daisy?"

"Doc?"

"Take care."

"I will."

"Daisy? Is everything alright?" Martha had joined Rose outside the door.

"Yes, yes, sorry! I was tidying up."

I waved at the Doctor and ran out to meet them, it was then we hit a little turbulence, and I grabbed Rose's hand until we landed. It was like touching down on an airport runway, but less stable, because we weren't sitting. I careered into Jack, who steadied me with a laugh. He was really strong. Cute too. I looked away sharply.

"Let's see where we are, shall we?" he asked.

He opened the doors and left, and as I was nearest, I was right behind him before anyone could protest that it might be dangerous and I was too young. What could be dangerous about London in 1963? I was excited; this was my first ever trip and we were going back in time. What was waiting for us? My excitement didn't last long as I took in the scenery.

"A Junkyard?" Donna was at my shoulder, "We've been taken to a _junkyard_?"

"Evidently." It was Sarah-Jane, K9 not far behind.

They were about as impressed as me as we stared around at the heaps of scrap metal, old tyres, broken appliances and who knows what else. It was also night time, and you could barely see a thing. At least it wasn't raining, small blessings. Rose and Martha came out, locking the TARDIS behind them. Donna surveyed the scene, hands on hips, she looked rather displeased.

"Right, so we're looking for a tiny stone in a scrap heap. Talk about needles and haystacks." She grumbled.

"Pick a haystack, any haystack." I smirked at her.

She was quiet for a moment, amazingly for Donna, although if I had said that out loud she would have boxed my ears I imagine. She stood staring straight ahead and I frowned, everyone was silent. I turned around and realised why.

"I pick that one." replied Donna.

She pointed at a stack of tyres that had two people hiding behind them, staring at us. One of them was a man in a light blue polo-neck that kind of reminded me of Star Trek. Next to him was a woman with a very 60s hairstyle, kind of reddish brown and they both looked like they wished they hadn't seen us. We looked like we wished they hadn't seen us.

"Oh, man…now what?" I asked Rose.

"Usually the Doctor comes up with a cover story…" whispered Martha.

Lucky for us, we had Donna on our side. She walked over to them; cool as you like, and gave them a great big smile, offering a hand as they shyly came out of their hiding place. I wondered why they hadn't called the police yet, I think they were in shock.

"Hello there!" greeted Donna brightly. "Don't mind us; we're just looking for something." _That_ was her cover story?

"How did so many of you fit in there?" asked the man accusingly.

"You're not supposed to be able to get out." ventured the woman.

"Oh!" Donna suddenly realised something, "Don't worry, we're not criminals."

Police box, duh. They actually had a function here. I resisted the urge to laugh as everyone breathed a unanimous sigh of relief. It was still weird to have two people wandering around a junkyard at night however. If that didn't shout suspicious, I didn't know what would.

"We came to put some things out here yesterday and I dropped my watch." continued Donna. "Only got off work half an hour ago, else I would have come sooner." She shrugged, and I was impressed with her acting ability.

"But…why are there six of you to look for a watch?" asked the woman, still suspicious.

"Oh, family trip. We're on our way to…" she stopped briefly,

"The theatre." hissed Sarah Jane.

"The theatre." Not a flicker, "My brother and sister." Jack and Sarah-Jane apparently. "And…her daughter." _Me?!_ I suppose I _was_ the most likely candidate, must have been the hair colour. "And her daughter's friends."

"Right." It was the man this time.

"What about you? What are you two doing out here at night?" Donna asked them, with a somewhat suggestive look that made both of them look embarrassed.

"We were looking for someone. She lives around here." The man revealed.

"Oh, who?" asked Donna conversationally.

With much coaxing from Donna, man that woman can talk, but she was just what we needed, they introduced themselves as teachers, worried about one of their students who had suddenly just disappeared, not turning up for class, even when she was one of the brightest students. I noticed everyone seemed to be taking on board what they said; Sarah-Jane was even making notes.

"So you're teachers?" asked Donna.

"Yes. My name's Ian and this is Barbara." introduced the man.

"And your student?" she pressed.

"Susan. Susan Foreman." replied Barbara.

Rose's fingers were suddenly digging in to my wrist and I jumped, biting my lip before I said ouch. When had she last cut her nails?! She hissed in my ear still clutching my wrist that she knew about Susan. The Doctor had mentioned her.

"His granddaughter." She whispered.

"Granddaughter?" I repeated as my mouth dropped open. I really did not want to think about procreation right then. "He has a _granddaughter_?" And my sister was hopelessly in love with him. That was creepy. But it made sense. If The Doctor didn't exist…Susan would disappear, in theory, wouldn't she?

"It works differently out there." Rose argued under her breath.

"That's something I really did not need to know."

Our spat was interrupted by a heap of metal suddenly crashing down inches away from us. In fact, Jack had to pull Sarah-Jane out of the way and she suddenly ended up in my arms as she tripped. Then there was a roar as something that looked like it belonged in Transformers appeared. It was about the size of a wolf, only on its hind legs, and looked kind of like a giant gecko, completely made out of metal. Its tongue flicked out towards Martha who scrambled back in to Rose and me, it was razor sharp. The lizard was blocking our way to the TARDIS.

"Get behind me!" ordered Jack.

"Are you crazy? Just leg it!" I cried.

"That's the general idea, I'm just giving you time, so get moving!"

"It'll kill you!"

Jack gave me the weirdest look then. "I can't die."

"_What_?!"

I didn't have time to stick around and hear the answer as Rose and Martha grabbed a wrist each, dragging me away as they ran, Sarah-Jane hot on our heels and the two teachers just at her back. I heard gunshots behind us.

"We can't just leave him!" I protested.

I tried to wrestle away from them, but they just double teamed me and pushed me on. When we stopped I had no idea where we were, it was just a kind of square of concrete, filled with rubble, surrounded by buildings on three sides and a wooden fence on the other. It had only the narrow alley we'd come down as an entrance. As everyone panted and tried to catch their breath I realised we were surrounded by deserted houses and the other side of the fence had weeds and grasses up to about my neck from what I could see in the one or two broken panels.

"What _is _that?!" Barbara's voice was very high pitched with worry.

"That's a really good question." replied Martha. "I haven't come across something like that before."

"Neither have I really." agreed Sarah-Jane.

"Nor me." Rose shrugged.

"Me either." Donna finished.

"Well, fat lot of good you all are." OK, I know that was harsh, but I was scared witless.

"Something does not want us to find what we are looking for." K9 was stating the obvious, but bless him if he wasn't the most reasonable one of us just then.

"You sound like you expect things like that." said Ian, back on Suspicion Isle again.

"It is strange though…" Barbara suddenly voiced, "Considering _why_ we were worried about Susan…"

Then things got really interesting. Apparently, this Susan had an amazing grasp of history and her theories in science were out of this world. The junkyard was her address. Rapidly appearing footsteps announced the arrival of Jack, and a clank and thud not that far behind told us he was being chased. He squeezed through the gap and joined us. The gecko didn't even stop, and just ploughed straight _through _the wall. Until Sarah-Jane pointed a lipstick at it. It buzzed and flashed, and the gecko stopped dead, collapsing on the floor.

"And you didn't do that before _why_?!" I demanded.

"Well, I sort of…forgot." She apologised.

"You forgot you had a sonic lipstick?" Jack stared at her.

I let them debate sonic devices like it was _normal_ and something about bananas and found myself wandering off again. I walked towards the gecko. It looked pretty dead to me, so it couldn't be dangerous. It was actually kind of beautiful in a strange, metal lizard way. I peered at the head, it was sleek, well cared for. The eyes were a kind of orange glass. I reached out a hand, and one of its legs slumped forward. I jumped out of my skin, but it was just slipping off some rubble. I felt sort of sorry for it, just laying there.

I peered forward, looking into its eyes. The eyes suddenly lit up and its jaw opened. Scared me to death, and I fell over backwards.

It was only then I drew the attention of the assembled, Jack started to run forward but stopped. The mouth of the gecko lit up, and…something _crawled_ out. It looked kind of like a hamster, only it was metal too. The big robot turned off again and the smaller one nipped my hand. I snatched it away as the thing scampered off, not before I snapped a picture on my camera phone for future reference. It was too fast for us to try and catch it. I don't think the others had really noticed anything apart from me on my butt staring at a defunked robot.

"A robot within a robot? That's not weird at all." I muttered, standing up and sucking the bit of skin between my thumb and forefinger. That little rodent had broken the skin and it stung like anything.

"Obviously you're not too tasty." Rose pulled a face.

"Are you alright? Let me have a look."

Martha grabbed my hand an inspected it as Jack, Sarah-Jane and K9 sniffed (in one case, literally) around the gecko. It could have been a lot worse for us. It wasn't dangerous at all though, in the end. It was so boring. I had hoped for more. What on earth was I saying?!

"It's just a shell." Sarah-Jane came back over, "Completely empty."

"So a hamster was its brain or something?" I couldn't quite comprehend as Martha put a plaster on my nick, bit fussy if you asked me, but who's to argue with a professional?

"Looks like it." Jack conceded.

"Who are you people, really?" asked Ian.

"You seem so much like Susan talking about sonics and time and space." Barbara added.

"Are you related or something?" Ian again.

Donna shook her head, "No. We just, know some of the same people."

I noticed something on the floor by the robot. It was a piece of paper that I had thought was plaster before, because it was raggedy and yellowing. In fact, it was an envelope. A letter addressed to a Susan Foreman. I picked it up and shrugged.

"Next time you see Susan, maybe you should give her this." I handed it to Barbara. "Don't know who it's from." I looked at the others, "Come on mum…Aunt Donna, Uncle Jack…" it was so weird calling them that. "We'll miss the show if we're not careful." In truth I wanted to get back to the TARDIS. Maybe the computer could explain the gecko.

"What, you're just…leaving?" Ian couldn't quite believe it.

"Oh, I'm sure, if time permits, we'll see each other again." It was Donna, backing me up, thankfully.

We said our goodbyes and left abruptly. I felt bad, not leaving some kind of explanation, after they had just been chased by the same metal reptile as us, but I really wanted to know what had bitten me, and could you blame me? Standing in the control room, I threw Rose my mobile so she could put the picture in the camera. I needed to talk to The Doctor. I made some lame excuse and went back to the wardrobe. I headed for the mirror, just as I got there, I stopped dead. A foot or two away, and he was suddenly standing in front of me, looking surprised. Still transparent, but less glowing gold.

"What the…? How did?" I stuttered.

"I was going to ask you."

My neck suddenly felt very warm and started glowing orange. I thought I was on fire! I whipped it out and burned my hand on the orange gem that was now there. I dropped it sharply, and amazingly there wasn't a mark on my hand.

"Where did that come from?" I blinked at the now cool orange stone.

"You must have attracted it somehow."

"Do you feel any more…you?"

"Honestly, I don't feel any different. What happened to your hand?"

"Oh, I got bitten."

He looked concerned, "You should keep an eye on that."

"I'm sure Martha will."

He smiled at me. "I'm sure."

"Oh! There was something I wanted to ask you!" I remembered.

"Yes?"

"You have a granddaughter?"

"Oh. _That_." At least he looked guilty for not telling me. I had a lot to learn about him I think.


	4. Blind Sided

Blind Sided

Blind Sided

_Ouch!_ Where was I? I couldn't remember what had happened. I just knew my head hurt and I was roasting. I blinked, slowly opening my eyes, and even more slowly sitting up. I was really confused. I was sitting in some kind of alcove, and all around me there was nothing but sand and dazzling sunshine. I checked myself over. I had sunburn on my legs, arms, back and shoulders. That would sting, and there was no-one else around.

I suddenly started panicking as I dimly recalled what had happened, we had just landed the TARDIS and stepped out, when…something, what was it? I didn't know, charged at us, carrying us off in all different directions. We had been blind sided.

Painfully I scrambled around for my bag, luckily I still had it, it was buried under a heap of sand in the far corner of the cave, and it had my Vaseline moisturiser in it. I sat down and started rubbing it on my sunburn, calmly trying to think what to do next. At least I still had the necklace, I felt it around my neck, couldn't be doing without that.

I briefly considered calling for help on my mobile, but funnily enough there was no signal. I think I could sort of remember what direction I had come from, maybe if I tried to find my way back to the TARDIS.

"Doc?" I called, "Doctor?" I stared at the stones on the chain. They didn't answer me. I sighed. "Hello? Is anyone there?" my voice echoed around the alcove, but I got no response.

I had to find somebody. I stared out of the opening, heat rippled off the sand and there didn't seem to be anyone or anything around for miles. Except vultures. That didn't bode well. Swallowing my fear I walked out.

"Hello?! Rose? Martha?" I called as I aimed for the scuffed tracks, the easiest clue. "Donna? Jack?" Nothing. "Sarah-Jane? K-9?" I had run out of companions and there was not a sound to be heard anywhere.

Something caught the corner of my eye, glinting in the sun. I went towards it, hoping it was friendly, and saw a familiar looking box.

"K-9!" I ran over, digging him out of the sand. He looked a lot more worn than I remembered, "Oh, you poor thing, are you alright?"

"Affirmative Miss Daisy."

I hugged him. I hugged a metal dog, but I was so happy to see a familiar face. Well, nose. "Can you find Sarah-Jane? Is she around here somewhere?" they were very rarely apart.

"I can try." he answered.

His…ear or something stood up and started spinning around like radar and beeping. It focused on one point and K-9 rolled off to the right, with me very close behind. There was a heap a few feet away from me, in a black leather coat and jeans, Sarah-Jane. We hurried over, she was out cold. I kneeled down and shook her shoulder to try and wake her up.

"Sarah-Jane? Sarah-Jane? Can you hear me? It's Daisy." I said quietly.

"Daisy?" slowly her eyes flickered open and she sat up. "Daisy!" She flung her arms around me and hugged me, and I was just as happy to return the greeting. "Thank god you're here! Are you alright?"

"Yea, a bit burned, but I'll live, you?"

"I'm ok. I think I sprained my wrist though. Is Rose with you?"

I shook my head, "No, nobody. I don't know where they are. We all got separated."

"Can you find them K-9?" she asked.

"I have been trying Mistress, but my signal is restricted out here."

"What do we do?" I asked. I was glad to have an adult around.

"We look for them. Come on."

She stood up and offered me her good hand, which I took. I rummaged around in my slightly torn bag and grabbed a bandage; I always kept the strange things around in case of emergency. She let me tie it around her wrist, just for support, before we set off, following the prints that weren't ours. We tried to recall what had happened, she was no clearer than me, except for remembering that we'd been carried off by _things_. Metal again and clearly unceremoniously dumped, like they hoped we would bake to death.

"I hope everyone's ok." I was worried.

"They'll be fine. Things like this have happened before." She reassured me.

"They have?" I looked at her.

"Yes. It always works out alright, promise."

"I'll take your word for it." I smiled slightly, "You have more experience than me."

She looked at me, considering this. "Yes, I suppose I do."

"How long have you known him? The Doctor."

I was curious to learn more about him, and here was the perfect opportunity. We were just walking along footprints and we had K-9 and a watch that she showed me to tell us if something wasn't right. I wish I had these gadgets everyone seemed to have. Sonic lipsticks and guns, super phones…but who was I to complain.

"Oh, a long time. Years." She seemed to be remembering the past, "All of them."

"What do you mean…all?"

"Oh, I forget you don't know, do you?"

"Clearly not." I sounded like a sulky child, and she laughed at me.

"How old do you think The Doctor is?"

I shrugged, "I dunno, mid-30s maybe?"

"Try 905. Or there about."

"Come again?"

"You know the Doctor is a Time Lord?" Well, yes, not that I knew what it entailed, "Time Lords have this…ability. When they die, or are near death, they regenerate."

"That sounds painful."

"Quite the opposite actually. Well, except the actual dying."

It wasn't surprising Rose hadn't mentioned the details to me. I assumed she had meant the same man that had blown up her job was the one I had spoken to. When he was in fact, the Tenth Doctor. Sarah-Jane had met more than half of them and they were all completely different. I was still freaked out by the fact my sister loved someone 881 years her senior as anyone would be I'm sure.

"What about the people he travels with? How many have there been?"

"Oh, dozens." Was the answer.

I didn't quite know how to phrase my next question. But, considering my sister's position, dead but not, I had to ask. "How many died?" I kept my voice quiet.

"According to my research…maybe a third." Sarah-Jane was just as quiet.

"My god."

I couldn't quite believe it. I didn't like to think about it. As it turned out, I couldn't think about it much, because we were suddenly accosted by two metal creatures, horse-sized, but canine looking. Like giant wolves. We stopped abruptly and backed up. Sarah-Jane grabbed her sonic lipstick, but whatever it was moved quickly and charged, knocking it out of her hand with a head butt that also sent her flying.

"Sarah-Jane!" I yelled.

It just drew the attention of its partner as it flew through the air in a pounce. I threw myself on to the ground, but the claws scraped down my back, slashing it, three diagonal lines from my shoulder blade to my waist. It landed above me, teeth gnashing as Sarah-Jane kicked at the other one to get it away from her. K-9 fired his laser, but it barely made a dent, just burning them, although it must have hurt, because it earned him a furious howl.

"Daisy! Watch out!" cried my current partner.

My back was burning something terrible, but I managed to do a dive slash roll out of the way, swiping Sarah-Jane's lipstick from the ground.

"What do I press?!"

"Just, press!" she instructed.

I did, and even my ears complained as a high-pitched whine emitted from it. The wolf things cried in pain and headed for the hills. Or, the dunes rather. We were just sitting there, in the middle of a desert, the sand burning any piece of bare flesh it touched, completely in shock. I picked myself up, but it hurt like hell to straighten my body. Sarah-Jane brushed the sand off her and came over.

"Oh, Daisy, you poor poor girl." She said on seeing my back, "We need Martha."

"We'll just have to make do for now." I sounded a lot braver than I felt.

"Clearly they didn't want us to go that way."

"Which obviously means, that's our next stop, right?" I grinned, trying to lighten the mood. "Don't worry; it looks worse than it is."

So she couldn't argue, I walked off in the direction the wolves had blocked before and unless she wanted to be by herself, she had to follow. Every single step hurt, but I did my best to ignore it. I wondered what time it was, when we had landed here my watch had stopped just to be extra helpful.

"Don't suppose you have any water in that bag?" asked Sarah-Jane.

I didn't know actually, I should have thought about it before. Heat could be just as dangerous as animatrons. I rummaged around and at the bottom there was a single bottle that held a litre. It was already half empty and it was warm.

"This is the best I can do, sorry." I handed it over.

She took a swig; at least it was better than nothing. By my guess it had been at least four, maybe five hours since we had arrived, judging by the fact we had come in the morning and now the sun seemed to be at its highest point in the sky. The sun abruptly reflected off something and dazzled me. I looked down to see what it was.

"That's Donna's" I realised. It was a little silver necklace with two overlapping hearts on it. The chain had snapped.

"So, she must be around here somewhere! I hope she's alright." Sarah-Jane, mother hen.

"I'm sure."

OK, I wasn't sure, but Sarah-Jane was fine, K-9 was ok. The others had enough experience with this kind of thing to look after themselves. I halted in my tracks as I saw something else, and Sarah-Jane crashed right into the back of me, which was incredibly painful. She apologised profusely.

"No worries, honestly. Look over there." I pointed. Just over a dune was the top of a palm tree. "Either I'm delirious, or that's an oasis."

No idea where we got the energy from but we ran as fast as our legs could carry us, and reached the top of a ridge. I whooped with joy, it was what I thought it was. A solid oasis. There were palm trees, a little other shrubbery and a small round pool of water, fed by a little stream. I wasted no time in downing the warm water in my bottle, then filled it up again and swallowing it all in one go, before passing it on to Sarah-Jane. Whilst she did that I went to a second pool a few feet away, took off my flip flops and dove in still wearing my shorts and t-shirt.

I washed off the dried blood and sand and ducked my head under. It was delicious. Under the water I looked at my hand, the one the hamster thing had bitten. It had already healed, but there was a faint white scar. I was surprised at the speed of recovery, but it couldn't be a bad thing. I came up again and grinned at Sarah-Jane, who was looking at me strangely.

"Something wrong?" I hoisted myself out.

I sat down by her, letting the sun dry my off as I hugged my knees. She had abandoned her leather jacket a while ago, it was in my bag, and she splashed water on her face before answering me.

"No, no." she smiled, but it was a sad smile.

"Come on, you can tell me." I urged, bottling things up was bad for you.

"I was just thinking. You're very bold. You're the youngest of all of us but the most enthusiastic and optimistic. You get badly hurt and you just shrug it off like nothing happened."

"'s no big deal." I assured her.

"That's the thing. It is. I admire it. When I first came in to this I was argumentative and stubborn, not much real depth. But you, you're something else. You don't even really know this man and you're risking life and limb just to help us. If I had a daughter, I'd hope she would be like you."

"You don't have one then?" I really didn't know much about her.

"No, no. I adopted a son, and I have a neighbour who's a little like a daughter to me, but I never had kids myself."

"Why?" Oops. Was I being too nosy? I bit my lip to shut myself up.

"Never found the right man. Well, I did once, but…" she trailed off.

Oh, so that was it. I was waking up to a new reality. She explained after he left, she just could not seem to settle down. Always restless. Waiting. Then she gave up waiting because she thought he was dead. By then it was too late to start thinking seriously about anything like that.

"Then he turns up again years later, only to disappear once more." she laughed at the irony.

"Oh, I'm so sorry Sarah-Jane."

"Don't be. I'm ok, I'm happy with my lot now. Just took a while is all." She inspected me once again, "Promise me something Daisy."

"Of course!"

"I don't know if things will be different this time. But however it turns out, look after your sister. Whatever happens. I think it would have been easier for me if I had someone like you around."

"Cross my heart." I vowed.

We settled in the shade of a group of palm trees, leaning against them. We must have fallen asleep because next thing I knew, I woke up, and I was staring into the dark, lit only by the silvery light of the moon. I was stiff as anything, and Sarah-Jane was curled up nearby. I yawned, shaking her awake. I wondered if she was as hungry as me. I rummaged around behind us, lit by the light of K-9's eye piece and grabbed a couple of mangoes. As we settled down to devour them, I heard a thud across the pool from us, and saw a shape moving in the dark.

"Who's there?" I demanded, standing up.

"Daisy?!" my face lit up, I knew that voice. "Oh my god. I've never been so happy to hear a teenager before!"

Donna came running over to us, and much to my surprise, flung her arms around my neck. She was a nice enough lady, but compared to the others, we weren't exactly what you would call close. But who cared, we'd found someone else. There were half of us present, and I hugged her back.

"What happened to you? Is that a mango? I'm starved." She asked.

She sat down by us and I handed another one over, as well as her necklace. I was still worried about Martha, Jack and Rose, of course. But the four of us here were all ok, save a little wear and tear. We agreed we would fuel up, and continue our search for the rest of the group the second the sun crept awake.


	5. Black Mariah

Black Mariah

Black Mariah

I didn't sleep a wink all night, and I think Donna and Sarah-Jane maybe only got one a piece. Even after an exhausting day, we were anxious to get moving and find our comrades. The minute the sky started to turn grey, I stood up. I had volunteered to be on watch because it was hard to get comfortable, because I usually slept on my back. I didn't need to worry about waking them however; they were up a split second after me. After a quick wash and brush up we reluctantly left the oasis, heading in the direction we had been aiming at for more than 24 hours.

"What happened to you then?" I asked Donna as we walked along.

"God knows. We arrived, something kind of rugby-tackled me, and I woke up a few metres away from here. Then found you."

"Was it metal?" asked Sarah-Jane.

"I think so. Couldn't tell what exactly though."

"If it's the same thing as us, it was a robot dog."

Donna stared at K-9, "Cousins of yours?"

"Not to my recollection." replied our own mechanical canine.

"Have you seen anyone else? Jack, Rose or Martha?" asked Sarah-Jane.

"No, I haven't. But I did get this."

Donna pulled a piece of dark blue material, ragged and ripped, out of her pocket and we all recognised it at the same time, it didn't bode well. Part of Jack's coat. He couldn't die (apparently, he just happened to mention it when we were in a junkyard. I didn't really know the details) but as far as I knew he could still feel death. That was not a pleasant aspect to think of when you thought of your friends. Donna took us to where she had found it, caught on a cactus (some cactus to rip Jack's coat!).

Suspicious, Sarah-Jane weaved her way through the needles, and banged on the cactus. There was a heavy thunk, it was metal too!

"Ok, that's just weird." Donna backed up, standing on my foot.

"Ouch!"

"Sorry."

"Let's go. K-9, can you pick up Jack at all? He should be nearer than the others." Asked Sarah-Jane.

"Affirmative Mistress." replied the dog.

His radar spun around and focus north east from us, there was nothing obviously in sight, and we all groaned. We'd set off happily enough, but now we were hot and sweaty and the sun was really beginning to heat up, but, loyal lot that we were, we followed the metal dog. The salt stung my back and we were all in grim silence, trudging along. It seemed like hours before we got anywhere. When we did it was not good news.

We had reached a kind of ravine, why there was a ravine in a desert I don't know, but it was big, and there was nothing but a half-broken old wooden bridge from one side to the other. Peering down the edge, with Sarah-Jane grabbing my arm so I didn't fall, my eyes widened. There was a dark figure, slumped at the bottom of the ravine.

"Oh my god. I think it's Jack!" I cried.

It was weird what happened then. Donna just seemed to crumple, falling on her knees in the sand. The other two of us immediately checked her out for some kind of injury, but there was nothing there, and then she started crying and neither of us knew what to do.

"It's entirely my fault!" sniffed Donna, Daisy's hurt, Jack's way down there, we have no idea where Martha and Rose are and it's because of me!"

What on earth? Sarah-Jane and I looked at each other. Not sure of what else to do, although still worried about Jack, I knelt down by Donna and held her hand.

"What do you mean Donna? How is this, your fault? We all got hijacked and split up. Could have happened anywhere, any when."

"The Doctor's gone because of me! I was the last one to travel with him, and I couldn't help him. None of you lost him!" she looked at me, "You don't even know him and you're trying to help anyway."

"Donna." It was Sarah-Jane, "What could you, or any of us have done if it had happened on our watch?"

"When they attacked, these things, the Inanis. He told me to stay back, and I did. I shouldn't have listened; I should have gone and got him out of the way!"

"He wouldn't have let you." Sarah answered decisively. "He knew what was going to happen, even if you had acted differently, the out come would have been the same because he wanted it that way."

"But!" protested Donna.

"But nothing. It's already happened and we can't change that. It's not your fault, or The Doctor's." I could see where she was going with this.

"If anyone, blame the Inanis." I finished.

"Now, come on. We have to get to him somehow, find Martha and Rose and get off this bloody desert."

"I'll go." They stared at me like I was insane, "Trust me. I'm in the rock climbing club."

"You are?" even Donna seemed surprised.

"Yes. Among many. We do this sort of thing all the time." I paused, "Well, not the flying in a time machine and getting trapped in a desert. But I can get down there, easy."

"But you have no safety equipment!" protested Sarah-Jane.

"I'll be fine."

Before they could argue, I went over to the edge, found a decent hand and foot hold and started my descent. They stared at me over the ridge and I just grinned at them. It definitely wasn't going to be easy, but there were no handy lifts around and as long as I could get down, I could get back up again. I hoped. It would have been much easier to abseil, but as I had no rope I didn't really fancy jumping off a cliff. After maybe twenty minutes, helped on by the odd slip and slide, Donna and Sarah-Jane were just a speck as my sneakers touched solid ground.

"Jack. Come on, get up now." I called.

I looked between the floor and the top. Damn that fall would have hurt. Most people wouldn't survive it. Lucky Jack wasn't most people really. I leaned over him, inspecting the damage. Personally, I think I would rather have been dead than felt that, poor guy. I shook his shoulder; I seemed to be rousing unconscious people a lot lately. He suddenly sat bolt upright, pointing his gun in my face and I stared at him.

"Gees Jack! It's just me!" I defended.

"Daisy?" he lowered his gun, "How did you get down here?"

"I climbed. Are you ok?"

"I just fell one hundred feet down a cliff." He answered.

He stood up, so I did too, but he swayed on his feet and I had to catch him. He was not a small man, but I actually had no problem.

"Whoa, head rush."

"Easy now. Just wait a minute."

I supported him until he could stand on his on two feet without a problem, he stared at the cuts on my back and before he could ask, I gave him a brief outline of what had happened until then. Landing, being blind sided, waking up in a desert. There was me, Sarah-Jane, K-9 and Donna and we were all fine, but we didn't know where Rose or Martha were.

"Well, this has been quite an adventure. How are we getting back up there?"

"Same way I came down. Feeling strong? Unless you have a handy device that might create an escalator for us. Or a grappling hook maybe."

"Well, actually..."

"You're kidding?"

He wasn't, one shot and we hoisted ourselves back up to Donna and Sarah-Jane. Now there were five of us, things were looking up. But I couldn't help recalling the survival rate I had been discussing with Sarah-Jane. A third died. A third of us were missing, and a sixth of that was my sister. With much clutching on to hands and careful stepping, we got to the other side of the ravine. However, we had a welcoming party. This time it was horses, about six of them, all metal, with riders. It was a strange combination of fantasy and sci-fi. Knights in shining armour…but with a definite sense of I, Robot. They were all completely metallic, human size and shape, but the joints connected more like armour than anything, although sleek.

"You will come with us." It was the front one talking.

"Oh no we won't!" Jack.

Jack grabbed his guns again, and we were instantly faced with six rifle like things in our faces, and the horse's mouths opened to reveal another six. We were in serious trouble, but nobody else around me seemed to care, all getting into fighting stances. K-9 had his laser, Sarah-Jane had her lipstick, Donna had commandeered a weapon from Jack and I…was a sixteen year old with not so much as a water pistol.

"Stupid humans. You're outnumbered, and we're faster." Chief metal head.

Jack fired a shot, and I had to rugby tackle him out firing another as it was suddenly Donna and Sarah-Jane who were in the line of fire.

"You can't die. But they can." Chief laughed.

"Idiot!" I hissed in Jack's ear. "We follow them, we could find Martha and Rose!"

He hadn't thought about that. I stood up, brushing myself down. Grumbling they all put away their weapons, having got my message. Shaking like a leaf and trying to hide it, I stepped forward.

"It's ok. We'll come, no fighting." I managed to spit out.

"This one's clever. She'll come with me." Chief suddenly hoisted me on to the back of his horse.

The others were dragged decidedly less neatly onto the backs of the others and we galloped off. I was amazed that although my seat was metal and the sun was boiling, it was cool to touch. It would have been a relief, if of course we hadn't been kidnapped by robots. Add that to the fact that we were losing valuable time we could be using to find The Doctor and it wasn't a happy scenario.

We were standing in the middle of another wide stretch of sand when our captors stopped. Wind rushed passed my ears as we almost flew _under_ the sand like we were on a log flume or something. I coughed and spluttered as sand filled my eyes, nose and mouth, and so did the others, when were finally landed it took me a moment to adjust.

"You wait here." Chief ordered me.

He left with two of the others and another three were left to keep an eye on us. It was really cold where we were standing, in a forum. We were in a square courtyard, pillars were holding up two levels of walkways and I could see on each walkway a number of doors. It was a cross between a palace and a prison or something. Everything was built with black metal.

"Where are we?" asked Donna.

"What are they?" Sarah-Jane looked at our guards who just slightly inclined their heads, without making a sound.

Both very good questions. Hopefully we would find out soon. We turned as a big door in front of us, that I hadn't noticed before because everything blended in, opened slowly. My heart filled, then sank in quick succession. A very strange sensation. Chief was back, and his two helpers had two more prisoners. I hadn't felt so happy in a long time, the prisoners were Martha and Rose and they were alive. But I saw they were both a lot worse for wear, and it absolutely terrified me.

"Daisy!" cried Rose.

"Rose! Martha!" I felt like crying.

I tried to run forward, so did they, but chief cut me off with a lance, and their guards wouldn't let them go.

"It's good to see you both." Called Jack.

"Although not exactly in these circumstances." Added Donna.

"Back at you." Martha managed a weak smile.

We were silenced as someone came out of the double doors behind them. Another metal man. It was strange, they looked just like humans, but weren't. If he was compared to the sort of person I knew, I would say he was a wrestler or something. Tall, broad, muscular. He had a deep purple cloak on and there was a symbol embossed on the left of his chest. I raised an eyebrow; it was a spade, as in the card suit. He clicked his fingers and a throne of sorts appeared, it was close enough to me for me to have to stand back, I'd been placed a little in front of the others. He sat down and looked around at us.

"You five gave us quite the run around." He chuckled, and his voice was so human it chilled me. "Stubborn little creatures."

"It's called survival instinct." Growled Jack.

"Oh, hush you. I don't want to hear it." Scolded the King, as I presumed he was.

"Who are you? What do you want? Why did you bring us here?" demanded Donna.

The King rolled his eyes. "Mouthy aren't you?"

"Just like those two." He nodded his head in the direction of Martha and Rose. "I think they learned though."

"You wish." I saw Rose mouth.

"Where are we? You've got us all now." Martha ventured, sounding resigned. I think she was pretending though.

"Oh, will you all please pipe down. Your talking annoys me."

The guards made just slight moves and each member of the group had sharp things aimed at their throats in a matter of seconds. Except me. To be honest I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but their treatment of my friends was making me furious. I was one of those people who simmered slowly. Mum described me as a pressure cooker, puts up with a lot, but dangerous when exploding.

"You're angry." The King turned to me, laughing. "But you're smart. You're not interrupting me." I bit my tongue to stop myself lashing back. Your name?"

I think he knew it already and was teasing me, but I answered. "Daisy."

"Pretty, very pretty." I swear he leered at me, which was creepy beyond words. "You want to know the answers to those questions Daisy?"

"Yes." I muttered, and was hit in the back of the head with the blunt end of Chief's lance.

"Yes, your majesty!" Chief declared.

"Sorry." I mumbled, "Yes, your majesty."

"My name is King Periculum. You're in Letum Curia." said the King. "Our headquarters. You want to know why?" I nodded, of course. "Because you're getting in our way. We can't let you do what you're trying to do."

"Why? What do you mean?" I couldn't stop myself this time.

He didn't seem to mind for a change, "We have a contract. We can do as we like, as long as we don't interfere with our colleague's doings. We quite like doing what we want."

"Your colleagues?" I dared.

"Called the Inanis. We go way back." He smiled.

"You're their army?!" I realised.

"Of sorts." He peered at me. "You know, you're very curious." I was? "I thought you'd be just another whiny vigilante." He grabbed my hand, the one that had been bitten, and his eyes glinted, "But you're quite something else. You might be interesting." He looked around the others. "Tell you what. I'm prepared to make you a deal."

"What deal?" that was Jack.

"Ever heard of a little game called Black Mariah?" Periculum asked.

The answer was a resounding no. Everybody shook their heads. Everybody apart from me, because it was a game I used to play at school with my friends at lunch time. It was a strange thing to bring up. You dealt out all the cards in a pack evenly and took it in turns to take a card off your friend. You discarded cards of the same number and picture cards, except the Queen of Spades. Whoever ended up with that card lost the game.

"Yes. I know it." I answered quietly. "What's that got to do with a deal?"

Periculum smiled and let go of my hand. "Just bear it in mind and we'll let you go."

"What's the catch?" Martha asked the question everyone else wanted to.

"No catch. You can do as you like, but we won't make it easy for you." Periculum looked amused at some private joke. "A little healthy rivalry."

"Why would you do that?" Rose questioned.

"Sometimes when things are simple, they get boring." Answered Periculum. "Promise me you'll think of Black Mariah and you can go."

"OK. We'll promise." I answered for them.

"Fair enough. Release them." He ordered.

That was that. We were suddenly free. I ran over to Martha and Rose and hugged them both tightly, ignoring the pain in my back. I didn't want to let them go. Periculum watched us, laughing quietly, and then walked away with all the guards except Chief. It was a tearful and cheerful reunion, people comparing battle scars and experiences in the desert. Then in a bright flash, we were suddenly in the TARDIS. A teleport? As we pulled ourselves together I made a lame excuse and dashed back to the wardrobe. I took out the necklace, just a faint hope. But no new stones had appeared. We weren't meant to have gone there, we were pulled there.

"You've been a while." It was the transparent Doctor. "I was worried."

"Sorry Doc. Got a bit sidetracked." I apologised.

I went to sit down on a chair so I could fill him in, and something fell out of my pocket. I looked at it, and was terrified. I immediately ran back to the others. Martha and Rose were helping each other patch up cuts and bruises, Jack was showing Donna how to hold a gun and Sarah-Jane and K-9 were logging our experience. Then there was me, apart from all of them.

I don't know how it had gotten in my pocket, or who had put it there. It was such a simple thing that scared me. It was just a playing card. The Queen of Spades…Black Mariah.


	6. Girl's Day Out

Girl's Night Out

Girl's Day Out

I had been jumpy ever since we came back from the desert. Call it superstition or unreasonable fear, but I was still scared. I could tell the others knew something was up, but I was hardly going to bother them with my fears, after all, they might have been unfounded. But The Doctor cornered me. I had avoided the wardrobe, but he had followed me wherever I went and there were no other people there, in all his holographic glory.

"Daisy, what's wrong with you?" he asked, cutting to the chase.

"Nothing." I lied.

"Give me a break. I've seen that expression often enough to realise it as being fear. What are you afraid of?"

"I just…have a bad feeling." I confessed.

"Oh?" he wanted more. Damn.

"Don't worry; I'm sure it's nothing."

"You're not the sort of person that gets scared by nothing."

I sighed and showed him the card, explaining about the game I played with my friends. He actually took me seriously. That was quite worrying actually. He told me he might have something that could help me, but he wasn't sure where it was. He suggested I should go back to the others and return later. Well, more insisted. I didn't have much choice really, as Martha and Rose suddenly appeared, cuing his disappearance. We had decided it wouldn't be fair to get their hopes up by letting them see him.

"Daisy, you're acting weird." declared Rose.

"Gee thanks." I rolled my eyes.

"It's our job to amend that. So we've spoken to the others, and you're coming with us." persisted Martha.

"Sorry, what?"

"We've found our next location, and as Sarah-Jane, Jack and Donna have other work to do, you're with us. Come on now, time to get changed." Rose pushed a pile of clothes into my hands.

I have to say, I was sceptical. They almost had to wrestle me in to my outfit, and when we'd finished, I looked a right sight. I stared at the mirror with them either side of me. They'd forced me into a light blue crop top, tight black pedal-pushers and a black mini-skirt thing over them. I insisted on at least keeping my own shoes, which they only agreed to because they were the high-top Converse type anyway. Much to my horror, they'd also let my hair down, and stuck electric blue and bright red extensions in it.

"Good grief Rose!" I complained, "I look like _mum_!"

"If she was a brunette." Rose smirked. I found this highly unfunny, although Martha burst into giggles.

I glared at them. They seemed to find looking ridiculous fun. They didn't look half as bad as me. Rose had a long pink t-shirt, tight straight leg jeans (with a matching denim jacket) and boots over that. Her hair was only crimped. Martha had a green off-the-shoulder top and cropped leggings with shoes just like mine. In fact, they were a pair of mine, just a different colour, with teased hair.

"I am not going out in this! I look ridiculous!" I realised how uptight I sounded, but I didn't care.

"Lighten up Miss Daisy, just try and have fun!" grinned Rose.

At least Martha looked sympathetically at me, "You get used to it. Honest."

Before I could think up any more excuses, they grabbed a wrist out and dragged my reluctant rear end out to the control room. Jack wolf-whistled and I punched him. Not hard, but I was in a bad mood. He laughed. Sarah-Jane patted my arm supportively and Donna just shrugged apologetically. Where on earth we were going I didn't know, but it didn't stop my sister frog-marching me out of the TARDIS door with a farewell wave to the rest of our crew.

The first thing I noticed, it was _really_ cold! They had me wearing a crop top. I glared at them. I asked where on earth we were, and they told me vaguely that we were somewhere in the 80s. This would explain the awful clothes. It was surreal looking around at things I'd seen on those cheesy movies as they really were. I suppose it was kind of fun. I hadn't spent much time with my sister since we'd left home. It was quite nice to forget about things for a while.

"Hey, Daisy, we haven't spoken much. What sort of things to you like doing?" Martha was the first person to actually ask me about me and I was amazed.

"I, um…" I didn't really know what to say. Even Rose was looking at me expectantly, because we hadn't exactly grown up sharing interests. "Well, I do a lot of things. Sports, like hockey, tennis, yoga and rock climbing, which you know about. I play guitar, in a band with my friends, piano and flute as more traditional instruments."

"Really?" my sister looked amazed, "I never felt bothered enough to do anything like that." She sounded a little guilty.

"Well, keeps me out of trouble, as mum says." I smiled. I missed her more than I thought I would. Why was it I couldn't just have my whole family together.

"Do you ever relax?" Martha grinned.

"Yes. I read a lot, to wind down, listen to music. Can't stand silence. I write sometimes too." I answered.

"Blimey. You make me sound lazy." Martha laughed.

Rose decided to walk ahead of us. I don't know what was going through her head to be honest but she seemed annoyed, like we had switched roles. Martha and I just looked at each other, let her do what she liked, she would come round soon enough I was sure. We were walking down a street; we didn't stop, because it was too cold for that. As Rose seemed to be sulking, which she did a lot lately, I turned my attention to Martha.

"What about you? I'm sure you're busy enough."

"Yes, UNIT keeps me on my toes." She agreed, "It's action-packed, but I never really pictured myself in the army. I often feel rather out of place."

I weirdly felt like I knew exactly what she was feeling, to a startling degree, like it was actually me feeling that. Sort of empathy. I tried to change the subject before we got depressed again, and I noticed the ring on her finger, she had mentioned a wedding when we first met.

"But you're not all work, am I right?" I winked. "What's his name?"

Martha was suddenly bashful. "He's called Tom. We've been going out two years now."

"How did you meet?"

"It was at work. Kind of."

Our conversation was interrupted by a horrific bang and we saw something light up the sky. We turned to each other, and ran within seconds. Even Rose joined us. We turned the corner and our mouths dropped open. It was a school and it was on fire. Part of it anyway. As we sped around the corner, another shape came in the opposite direction and before I could stop we ploughed straight into each other. I flew backwards, dazed and winded, and so did the other shape.

"Oof." I choked as Martha helped me up. "You ok?"

"You should watch where you're going!" it was a girl, dressed almost completely in black. Actually, her outfit wasn't much different from mine come to think of it.

"Hey! It takes two people to crash into each other!" I argued.

She stood up and we glared at each other. I think she was either my age or a bit older maybe. The jacket was very retro, and I much preferred her hairstyle to the one that my sister had graced me with.

"What's the hurry anyway?" asked Rose.

"You were running too." Retorted the girl, "I should ask you the same."

"Um, hello, did you not just see a building blow up?!" was she blind, "We were going to help of course!"

"Why? There's no-one in there." She didn't seem to care.

"How do you know!" she really irritated me.

"I was just there!" she said smugly, and then suddenly looked guilty.

My mouth dropped open, "Did…did you just blow up that school?!"

"Yea, whatcha gonna do? Not like everyone hasn't dreamed of doing that." She folded her arms stubbornly.

"No sane person would actually do it though!"

"Are you calling me crazy?"

I swear we would have fought there and then as she was suddenly restrained by Rose and I was grabbed hold of by Martha. I was an easy going girl, people like me and I generally liked them. I never got angry, but right then I just wanted to punch this arrogant girl in the nose.

"No, just a pyromaniac." I replied dryly.

"At least I'm not a wannabe. What is with that hair?" she argued,

"I'd rather look like this than be a total psycho!"

"You're such an airhead!"

Oh my god. Was I a nine year old fighting in a playground? I promptly bit my lip; this was not the best light for Martha and my long absent sister to see me in. Martha, sensing my changing frame of mind found it safe enough to release me.

"Whatever! Why the hell did you blow up a school?"

"Creative statement."

Rose stepped in between us, "Will you two just cool it?!"

"What are you, my mother?!" the girl didn't shout at least.

"No, but she's my sister, and you better watch it." I growled.

Eventually calm, rational Martha, used to dealing with conflict situations stepped in and sighed, I immediately felt ashamed. I think this girl did too as she neatly separated us. Rose hid a smirk and gave her a nod of approval.

"Enough of this. What's your name?" she asked mildly.

"I'm Ace." She replied, still a little sulky, but less so.

"I'm Martha, this is Rose and this is Daisy." She pushed me forward willing me to kind of introduce myself. I didn't say anything, just vaguely nodded and grunted I think. "Why exactly_ did_ you blow up your school?"

"Just the art room. You don't need to know why."

I suddenly noticed that Rose was perfectly still, and staring up at something behind us. I frowned and turned around, following her gaze. I immediately backed up; not really noticing that I'd nudged this Ace in the progress. Martha took my silence as a warning and she turned too.

"What on earth is that?!" cried Ace.

They looked like snakes, really, really big snakes, green and slimy. But they had matching bat-like wings. They were about as big as a mini-bus, there were three of them and their tongues flicked out as they smelt us. Martha and Rose turned tail and ran and I was right behind them. I got about fifteen feet away, and saw Ace wasn't following us. She was just stood there, frozen. I backed up and ran over.

"Come _on_!" I said urgently.

I grabbed her wrist and pulled her along, amazingly she didn't protest and a few seconds later she was running on her own, right next to me and keeping a steady pace with me, which was impressive. I was on the track team too. I liked to keep busy. The beat of the snake's wings ruffled my hair and you could hear them hissing. Passers by stared before promptly screaming and shouting, running for the hills. I half wondered if this had been in the history books. Heaven only knows there were some oddities already, and I bet most of them were courtesy of The Doctor. I also noticed I was doing a lot of running away from things ever since I had jumped on board.

I'm not quite sure how we ended up in an old factory, but we did. It was really eerie. Broken down and dark. It didn't seem any safer than being outside with the flying vipers. The room we were in was empty of everything, concrete floor, no windows, and only the metal door we had run through, and promptly locked. Ace looked at us; waiting for an explanation, which none of us actually had to give her because we didn't know ourselves.

"That was unpleasant." I grumbled.

"I've never seen anything like that before." Rose said.

"I have. Rather wish otherwise though." Martha shuddered.

"That makes two of us." Ace supported.

"Three, actually." I added.

"You guys do this often?" Ace stared at us, "They seemed to be targeting _you_ after all."

"It's like a bad dream you just can't wake up from." Rose replied with a wry smile.

"Not always a nightmare though." I found myself defending. "You just have to take things as they come."

"Who are you people, really?" asked Ace. I could tell she was bright, and seemed more interested than afraid of us.

"We just sort of travel around, looking for something." replied Martha vaguely.

"We happen to get a little side tracked quite often though." I added.

After explaining to Ace best we could without mentioning aliens, just science experiments and mutation, we finally turned to Martha to enlighten us to what these things were. She seemed to look very nervous, Martha never looked nervous, so it instantly put you on edge too. They were apparently Temor; they feed on fear by making you face your worst fears. Most people were scared to death, quite literally. Those who weren't tended to wish they were. That did not bode well for us.

"You what?" Ace looked suitably worried, "I'm outta here!"

She made for the door and I grabbed her elbow, "Would you rather face those things alone then?" I challenged.

She thought about that. Then decided to stay with us and try and plan a way out of this. We asked Martha how to beat them, and she admitted you couldn't, they had just run last time. Well, that was great. Ace suddenly dumped down a bag I didn't realise she had before and grabbed two canisters, roughly the size of a hairspray container. She grinned proudly as we stared at it.

"This might help." She said confidently.

"What is it?" Rose asked.

"A little concoction I made. Gave me a real boost earlier."

"It's explosive? You carry dynamite around in your _bag_?"

"Cool." I couldn't help saying.

"_Cool?!_" cried Rose in disbelief.

"What. I liked chemistry." I shrugged, "Best science."

"How did you come to that?" Martha pressed.

Ace shrugged, "Easier. The bigger the explosion the better the mark."

"I got an A." I grinned, Ace was right.

"Me too."

Maybe she wasn't so bad after all. The two older women looked at us, incredulous, as if they couldn't quite believe what they were hearing. You could tell what they were thinking by their expression, 'the youth of today, honestly'. I think Ace got that too, because we both had to hide laughs.

Rose sighed, "Blowing things up does seem to be effective usually."

Martha looked sceptically at her, "You want to risk getting close to those things?"

Rose met her gaze, "You're the army girl."

"I'll do it." Ace and I chorused.

"No way! You're just kids!" said Rose immediately.

"Well I didn't see _you_ volunteering." pointed out Ace, hands on hips.

"I didn't not volunteer, you just didn't give me a chance." retorted Rose.

"I'm generally opposed to explosives." Martha looked at Rose, "Army girl or no. That's _why_ I'm opposed to them."

"I can understand that Martha." I said, honestly I could, "But I don't think we have much choice."

"How good's your aim Daisy?" Ace asked me.

"Pretty good." I replied, shrugging.

"Awesome. They should attach and blow up."

She threw me a couple sticks of whatever this stuff with and I caught them, Rose and Martha looked like they were just about to have heart attacks. We probably weren't as scared as we should be. Call us reckless teenagers, but I think we had somehow shifted in to a kind of contest, and if either of us chickened out we would lose. It was stupid of us, but we couldn't stop now.

"Don't even think about it!" cried Rose as Ace started giving me instructions on detonation.

"Think about it?" she's already worked out how to do it. I think Ace was mildly impressed. Not that she would admit it.

"So what," began Rose. She was not best impressed. "You're gonna run out there and hope giant flying snakes don't bite you before you get close enough to attach bombs to them?"

"They don't exactly…bite." admitted Martha.

"What do they do then?" I asked.

"Sting."

We didn't have much time to discuss the merits of this, as our three scaly members of the opposition had somehow managed to follow us into the factory. They hissed and made a kind of screeching sound that put your teeth on edge. Frantic, Ace and I grabbed some of her little canisters and launched them before diving down with Rose and Martha to avoid the blast. Two of them were down, there was only one left looking lively…and peeved. It seemed momentarily dazed by the sudden flash of light but we ran again and it soon followed us.

Ace was way ahead, keeping up with Rose and I was next to Martha. I suddenly noticed her fall back out of the corner of my eye and skidded to a halt, she was holding her shoulder with the Temor bearing down on her. Realisation hit me and I sped over. I glared at the creature, and much to my amazement, it stared at me and fled. I didn't have time to wonder why, nor did I want to.

Martha's shoulder was cut, I had only sort of seen what happened. The Temor seemed to produce tiny fragments of glass that fell like rain from its eyes. She clutched it and wouldn't let go, not even to let me check it out.

"Martha? Come on, we should get that seen to." Rose and Ace were long gone.

I reached out to her shoulder again and her spare hand snapped up and clutched mine, scared the hell out of me, but other than that she didn't move. I waved my hand in front of her face, she didn't even blink, and she looked terrified.

_Most people were scared to death._

Oh, snap.


	7. Fear Factor

Fear Factor

Fear Factor

I had no idea what to do, Martha was crushing my hand and I wasn't sure where Ace and Rose had gone. I knelt down by her, she was rocking herself and tears trickled down her cheeks. I grabbed her arm, shaking her to try and snap out of it.

"Martha, Martha! Come on, we gotta get out of here, we need to find the others." She didn't answer me. "Martha, it's not real, can you hear me? Look at me!"

Her head slowly turned, but her eyes were glazed. She stared at me like she didn't recognise me. I don't think she _did_ recognise me. I pushed, prodded, shook, clicked my fingers and it did nothing, zero, zilch. I grabbed my necklace; maybe the Doctor could hear me and help me.

"Doc? Can you come here?" I called quietly, "Even a little of you? I need help."

I looked hopefully at the small flat gemstones. The most recent one glowed slightly, producing a beam. Suddenly, a tiny hologram of The Doctor was there, about the size of an average pen, barely passed my ankle. He looked so much like a miniature doll that I would have laughed had I not had a twenty odd year old doctor frozen in place and killing my hand.

"Can you help Doc? Can you talk to her? Can she even see you? Or me, come to that." I fired; I talked a lot when I was nervous.

"Martha, it's the Doctor." His small form said, "Do you know who I am?" She just blinked glassy eyes. "It's no use, it's mental. She's literally trapped inside her mind."

"The one place we can't go." I realised. "Poor Martha…"

"If I was there, I could, but!" The Doctor was frustrated.

Finally Rose and Ace realised we weren't behind them and returned, my necklace promptly did whatever it did. Turned off? As they stood behind me, they peered over my shoulder.

"What's wrong with _her_?" asked Ace.

"The Temor got her." said Rose quietly. She turned to me, "Anything we can do?"

"I don't know." I responded honestly. I reached up, brushing Martha's hair out of her eyes.

With a lurch, I was swiftly falling into darkness. I looked around frantically for Rose and Ace, reaching out and trying to grab them, but there was nothing there, it was completely empty. I felt like I was in water, floating without control, but I could breath, and open my eyes. It was deadly silent. I landed feather-light on my feet on a solid floor. It was all black, but the second my feet touched it, light spread out, revealing it to be some kind of vast hall with black tiles and black walls, and what I swear was an IMAX cinema screen. I was standing on a mounted platform with three steps down.

"What in the world?" I breathed.

Then I saw her. Martha was standing below me; in the middle of the humungous…was it a theatre? She was staring at the screen. I jumped off my platform and ran to meet her. When I did, the screen flickered to life. It was like 3D and I was watching, well, Martha.

"If this is your head Martha Jones, you need a lick of paint." I muttered.

She was transfixed and I watched the picture on the screen, Martha was standing in what I presumed was where her and her other half lived. It was neat, cosy. Warm colours and lots of photographs. The Martha on the screen turned around and walked towards of us. The rest of the room shifted and I swear we were _in_ their home. I did a quick 360 spin and saw nothing of the black room and the screens. Martha was beside me, watching herself. But she couldn't see me, either of them.

"Aw…" I said to myself.

The screen Martha was pregnant, you could tell by the bump and the way she tenderly stroked her stomach and glowed. Out of a door to the side came a small boy, who barrelled in to his mother's legs; I actually moved out of the way; laughing and giggling as who I assumed was Doctor Tom chased him out. My Martha watched with a smile on her face, she looked so happy. It was a perfect family scene and I must admit I melted watching it. Doctor and Doctor Milligan and Milligan junior. Lovely.

Then there was a crack that made me jump a mile, and my neighbour did too. It was a gunshot. I looked around, and could see no evidence of it. Until Tom suddenly froze, looking ghastly pale, at exactly the same time as little Milligan. I covered my eyes as they twisted and convulsed like some bad horror movie. It was gruesome. I would not forget that image for a long, long time. Then they sort of dissolved into nothing, leaving both Marthas more than a little wobbly. I tried to steady screen Martha by grabbing her elbow and I simply went through her, it was like a projection.

Another gunshot and the nice little house started tearing itself apart, ripping and destroying. It faded away and so did the terrified Martha twin. It was replaced by a stone room, completely empty, no doors or windows. Things started appearing from the walls, and to my alarm the real Martha walked towards the middle of the room, as if hypnotised.

"Martha! Get back here!" I called in vain, "It's not safe!"

The things turned in to recognisable shapes, people. There were two men and two women, one older one younger each. Family? There was another woman with a small child. There was a whole load of army soldiers, a mixture of other people and, The Doctor?! He was surrounded by Rose, Jack, Sarah-Jane, Donna and K-9. Even Ace was there. I looked for myself, as you would, but I wasn't there. Maybe because I was already present? To a degree.

They all looked smiling and happy, reaching out to embrace Martha and she held out her arms to them. But there was more cracking and gunshots and they all warped and twisted, engulfed by flames. I was sort of glad to _not_ see myself in the tornado. Much to my astonishment, the fire was coming from Martha's outstretched hands and she wasn't trying to stop it.

"Martha!" I ran, trying to grab her perfectly stiff, icy cold, arms, "Why are you doing this to yourself? It's not real!"

She looked at me then, I think she registered me. My head was suddenly filled with pictures that I didn't want to see. Death, destruction, flames and explosions. Memories? I saw Tom, shot dead, in a dark and deserted street, who I thought must be Martha's family, enslaved, hideous creatures that were just heads in balls. The Doctor on fire, screaming in pain, patients flat lining. In one of these images a whole unit of soldiers in front of Martha were incinerated by a blast. She seemed to have been giving the orders just before that, and she stood there, broken-hearted and furious at herself.

This was what she carried around every day? I dreaded to think what all the others were burdened with, least of all The Doctor.

"Martha, it's not your fault!" I cried hysterically.

"I told them to go forward. I told them to die." She croaked.

"Come off it Martha! It would have happened the same if someone else had been there! _It's not your fault_."

The images snapped shut and Martha's hands started feeling warmer. The flames stopped. Just when things seemed to be getting better, a hiss and a shriek alerted me of the presence of a Temor. I spun around and hid Martha behind me.

"Don't you _dare_!"

No idea what happened then. There was some kind of sonic blast I think, purple, and the Temor howled as it exploded into pieces, slopping green slime and other liquids I didn't want to think about all over the place. Everything disappeared the instant Martha slumped into my arms. We were lost in darkness and silence again, only this time it was calm and peaceful, warm, like a good night's sleep.

Air rushed passed my ears as reality kicked in. Reality was bright, but cold. We were back in the factory, with Ace and Rose staring at me and the woman in my arms in disbelief.

"Where did you _go?!_" cried Ace.

"What?" I blinked, confused.

"You touched her and then just, you weren't there any more! She was, but you were gone! Like an astral projection or something!" blabbered Rose.

"What?!" I repeated.

"Then you just suddenly appeared out of thin air, like you teleported or something!" garbled Ace.

"_What?!_"

"Seriously, where were you? What _are _you? You an alien?" Ace seemed worryingly excited.

"No, I am _not_ an alien!" I scoffed.

A shift in weight and a slight groan reminded me that Martha was with us still. She opened her eyes and lifted her head, looking up at us. She suddenly looked scared, scrambling unsteadily back.

"Martha, relax! It's really us." I soothed.

"Daisy?" she stared straight at me. "Daisy!" She ran forward and hugged me so tight I had difficulty breathing, "You, how did you?" she seemed awkward, then dropped her head. "Thank you." She said quietly.

I bent slightly to meet her eyes with her head still tilted down, "You remember what happened?"

She nodded. "I really wish you hadn't seen that."

"Do you remember what I told you?" I whispered.

She paused, then squeezed my hand. That was a yes then. I smiled at her and she managed to return the gesture. Ace was getting bored, and started checking her artillery. Martha's whole body tensed next to me and I explained to Ace that I had a better way of beating those things, so she could save her bombs. She looked annoyed, but secretly relieved. Martha slowly exhaled, also relieved.

"What do we do now then? I don't know where that other thing went." said Rose.

"I don't think it will bother us." I assured her, "Trust me."

"How can you be so sure?!" Rose narrowed her eyes.

"The Temor is scared of _Daisy_." explained Martha.

"How does that work?" Ace pulled a face.

"Heaven only knows." I shrugged.

I didn't. Couldn't even guess. I didn't know how the other one had exploded either. I had a sneaky suspicion the Doc had a hand in it, and smiled to myself. Even a pint-sized Time Lord had kick. I looked around at our surroundings. We came to a mutual agreement that as we had been stuck in that hell hole most of the day, we should take advantage of the time we had left.

We held on to each other as we walked out of the factory, bending under a door similar to one you would find on a garage and helping each other scrambled over or through a broken fence, until we landed on even, clear ground. It was the school playing field. It was also night time. What a waste of a trip. At least it meant nobody else was around as we hopped over the locked school gate and into the town.

"What do you do for fun around here?" asked Rose.

"Me personally? Or the other idiots from around here?" Ace rolled her eyes.

"Let's be the other idiots for a while." Rose grinned, "I've had enough excitement for one day."

Ace sighed, "Then you'll want to go to Lou's." she pointed down the street, "Straight ahead, turn left, you can't miss it."

"Of course not, because _you'll_ be our guide." said Rose innocently.

Ace glared at her, "No chance."

"Oh, come on. Lighten up." Rose grinned.

That seemed to trigger a shift in Ace's demeanour. "That's what Manisha always said…"

"Who's that?" asked Rose cheerfully.

"A…friend of mine…she's not around right now." answered Ace.

"It's decided then."

Rose linked arms with Ace and me, pulling us forward. I grabbed Martha's hand to drag her with us and we almost rolled down the street, laughing. We got some funny looks, but I didn't really care. Beside, most of them were quite amused. Nothing wrong with a group of friends having a good time together. We had definitely earned it.

Lou's turned out to be a skating rink. As in roller skating. Ace really did not want to go in there but we pulled and pushed (Rose did anyway) and she finally caved. We all needed a bit of a break, a lot of one even. We handed in our shoes and exchanged them. I noticed Ace was getting a lot of attention, school mates I presumed. They looked at her as if they were wondering what _she_ was doing there. I could soon solve that.

"Race ya!" I called as soon as we got to the start, then I sped off.

"Hey! That's cheating! No head starts!" Ace forgot the eyes on her and chased after me.

We raced around the ring, dipping and weaving, twirling out of people's ways and I suppose trying to trip each other up. But it wasn't malicious, it was more fun than I had in a long time. Eventually the crowd stopped being annoyed with us and cheered us on, half for Ace and half for me. It was fantastic, the air rushing through my hair and clothes as cheesy but good 80s music played and everyone else joined in our game, racing us, or trying to block our way. I vaguely heard Martha and Rose talking as I rushed passed them.

"Daisy's sure socking it to the world." Martha whispered.

"Yea, she does that." Rose answered with a smile.

That was enough of a lift for me to jump and spin, getting ahead of Ace in the race. Around the fifth lap we realised Martha and Rose weren't joining in. We looked at each other and without warning, I grabbed Rose's hands and Ace grabbed Martha's, and we dragged them along behind us, skating backwards much to the delight of the crowd who whooped, cheered and wolf-whistled.

We killed at least four hours. It was quite late when we filed out. Everyone was exhausted but I was buzzing like I'd had a dozen or so too many expressos. We realised we had to say goodbye to Ace and that dampened my spirits some. Another time, another place, and I think we would have been good friends. We stopped a street away from where the TARDIS was parked.

"Will…will you come back?" asked Ace hesitantly. You could see her tough exterior was just hiding an insecure teenage girl. We'd all been there. "I mean, you don't have to, but."

"We'll definitely see each other again." I assured her. "Cross my heart."

She smiled at me. The first real smile I'd ever seen from her. "I'll hold you to that, Daisy Tyler." She waved and walked away.

Rose looked at me, "How can you promise her that?" she was trying to sound like she wasn't scolding me.

"It's just a feeling I have."

We got back to the TARDIS and everyone was waiting to hear about our little adventure. I let Martha and Rose fill them in, making the excuse that I wanted to be in my own clothes thanks, because I could feel my neck heating up. I didn't actually go to the wardrobe. I went to the room I had been given, which I shared with Rose. Martha was next door. I got out my necklace.

"Doc?" I called.

Then, faster than before, the new yellow stone shot a beam in front of me, and the pen-sized Doctor stood in front of me. He grinned as his small form got bigger, clearly the presence was stronger in the TARDIS.

"How did you do?" he asked.

"Jack's making Martha promise to take him skating some time." I replied. "Why did you run from the Temor last time you saw them?" I cut to the chase.

"I wasn't strong enough to beat it." He said solemnly.

"You are joking right?"

"No, why?"

"It just…ran away from me! Not that I'm complaining, but why?"

"May I try something?" he asked.

"As long as I can sit down." I was tired now.

I sat crossed legged on the carpet, and The Doctor reached forward, holding his hands either side of my temples. I panicked, but he told me to relax. I felt him in my head, a bit like it had been the last time, even if that was by accident. He rifled for a few seconds, before setting back and regarding me.

"The Temor feed on fear, increasing it to an unbearable degree, effectively giving their victims a heart attack, and they drain their life energy. The whole aim is to scare people to death."

"What's that got to do with me?"

"Do you know what you're most scared of Daisy?"

I shook my head. I hadn't ever thought about it really. "I don't know, I never considered it. Scorpions maybe?"

The Doctor shook his head, "Some fears are so deeply hidden not even their carriers are conscious of them."

"You're making about as much sense as Dr Seuss."

"The whole design of the Temor is to kill people through their biggest fear. But you, Daisy, you defeat the whole object."

"I do?" that was news to me.

"They couldn't kill you because…you're scared of _not_ dying."

"Not dying? That makes no sense."

Then I realised it did. I couldn't bear the thought of losing my friends, my family, anyone I had ever met ever dying. If I lived forever, they'd drop off one by one. I would be alone. It would be easier for me to die first because I couldn't handle losing anybody. I stared at the Doctor. He was over 900, and still had a few lives left in him. I realised then a lot of the sadness in his eyes was because of that. He was the last, he would live almost forever and no-one would be left.

"Oh yes, it does."

The voice was foreign and I spun around. Too late for The Doctor to hide away again. We had been caught.

Standing in my doorway, was Captain Jack Harkness.


	8. Waterworks

Waterworks

Waterworks

I felt like a naughty school girl who had just been caught doing something she shouldn't. I stood there, rooted to the spot as Jack and The Doctor just stared at each other in complete silence. It was unnerving. Of all the other companions he was the one I had spent the least amount of time with, he just _had_ to be the one to catch me out.

"Doctor?" Jack had a strange expression on his face.

"Hello Jack." said The Doctor calmly.

I sensed something suddenly snap in Jack. He walked in and closed the door behind him. Right then, there was nothing I wanted more in the universe than that door to be open. I had a really bad feeling about this.

"I thought you were dead!" roared Jack.

Jack lunged at The Doctor and went straight through him, but both The Doctor and me were alarmed. Especially when Jack rounded on me, striding forward as I pressed myself against the wall. He looked maniacal and although The Doctor tried to grab his arm, he couldn't touch him..

"Why didn't you tell us?! Why did you let us suffer like that?! Do you have any idea what's it's been like!"

Then, and I don't think he could control himself, Jack pinned me up against the wall, and his hands were suddenly around my throat. It was like he didn't even realise what he was doing. I gasped and clutched at his hands, trying to get him off me. I have no idea why he was reacting so violently. It was like he had been slowly bubbling under the surface and seeing The Doctor just made him explode.

"Jack!" called The Doctor, "Jack! Stop!"

"WHY?!" Jack hadn't even heard him and I was feeling dizzy.

"I…I…I…" I choked, he was suffocating me.

"JACK!" yelled The Doctor. "She did it because I asked her to!"

I closed my eyes tight, absolutely terrified, and then there was a bang and a flash of light, purple light. Jack's eyes widened as he soared through the air, crashing into my bed so hard the legs gave way. My mouth dropped open as I stared at my hands, just as a very faint purple light vanished from them. I recognised it as the kind of energy that had blasted away the Temor before.

"What…what the hell?!" stuttered Jack. I think the shock had brought him back to his senses. "What did I…oh my God…" he scrambled up, reaching out to me, "Daisy! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean!" I ran away from him, scared.

"Daisy, how did you do that?" The Doctor was stunned.

"I didn't do it!" I protested. I couldn't have.

This was too much. As my door flew open; charged by Donna; Rose, Sarah-Jane and Martha ran in, all holding some kind of weapon. They pointed it all around the room. Then all of them saw him, The Doctor. My knees gave way and I crumpled, bursting in to tears. I hated crying in front of people, but I just couldn't stop myself.

First I lost my sister, then I got her back, then we got transported to a parallel universe, then we were chased by robots and stranded in a desert, and to top it off I'd been keeping secrets for everyone from everyone. Now this. Jack had tried to strangle me, something weird was happening to me, and everyone else was going to yell at me for not telling them about The Doctor.

"Doctor…" it was Rose, she stepped forward, reaching for him.

"Rose. You can't." I heard him sigh, "This is exactly what I didn't want to happen."

"Daisy…Daisy knew all this time?" Donna.

"Why…" Martha's voice caught.

"She was trying to stop _this_." replied The Doctor, resigned.

I had heard enough, I could barely see as tears blurred my vision, but I picked myself up and just ran, I had to get out of there, get away from all of that. I couldn't bear to be there, or here, or anywhere near any of this. I fled to the wardrobe, if only I had gone there like normal. I locked the door and curled myself in the darkest, furthest away corner, clutching my knees.

"I want my mum!" I cried to the empty room. Fat lot of good that would do me.

I don't know how long I sat there, I had no energy to move, no will either. It was quiet and cool, nobody else was there. Right then it was the most perfect place in the world. I was all cried out, it had been twelve years since I had cried that much, the first time Rose disappeared. But I had hated how it made my mum and dad feel, so I stopped myself and swore never to burden anyone with my fears ever again. They were mine and mine alone.

My necklace started glowing. My throat hurt, I could tell it was bruised, but the light wasn't hot this time, it was warm, calming. A screen suddenly opened up in front of me, and I stared. It was my living room, my mum was there and she was staring exactly in my direction, she had a screen too.

"Mum…mummy?" I whispered.

"Daisy? Oh my god, Daisy!" it was so good to hear her voice.

"Mum!" I stood up and tried to reach her, but my hand just went through the square.

"Daisy, my baby! Are you alright? Where are you? Where's Rose?"

"I'm ok mum. I'm in the TARDIS, so is Rose…" then I cracked again and tears fell down my cheeks.

"Daisy, honey, what's the matter?" Mum sounded so concerned, so caring. I hadn't heard any tone like that from any of the others, not even Rose, they were all too busy with their own things.

"Mum! She hates me! They all do! I kept something from them, something really big and now they're never going to talk to me again!"

"Oh, sweetheart. If there's one thing I know about this strange, strange universe, it's my daughters. If you hid something that big you must have had a good reason and Rose could never hate you. No-one could, you're my Daisy." She smiled at me.

I sniffed and smiled back, feeling a little better. "Are you alright mum, dad? Marcel? I miss you all horribly."

"We're fine love. Miss you like crazy too. Will you send Rose my love, and the others? When will you be back?"

"I don't know mum, but I'll pass on your regards."

"Make it soon, ok, I'll make your favourite for when you get back. You go and save the world honey, and take care of yourself."

"I will mum, I promise. Look after yourself too!"

"Love you!"

The screen suddenly disappeared, like a pay phone that had run out of money, "Love you more." I whispered to the empty space.

I don't know how I had spoken to my mum, or who had arranged it for me, but I said a thank you out loud to whoever might hear me, and I swear the TARDIS buzzed just a little. I was brought back down to earth by a knock on the wardrobe door. Followed by a voice gently calling my name. It was Rose. Time to face the music.

Picking myself up and trying to make it look like I hadn't just bawled like a baby, I opened the door, ready to face an onslaught. I braced myself as I saw all of their faces looking in at me. There was nothing, just silence, with five pairs of eyes staring at me. Then Rose ran forward and hugged me, which knocked me right off my stride. She clung to me and I could feel her tears drip into my hair and onto my shoulder. Martha was tearful too, holding my arm and Donna and Sarah-Jane looked at me like if their was room they would be hugging me too.

"You…you're not mad at me?" I couldn't believe it. I looked at Jack and he shook his head, he hadn't told them about my little outburst.

"I was worried sick about you." sniffed Rose. "Do you realise you've been in here five hours?"

"I have?"

Sarah-Jane nodded. "The Doctor, he told us what you had been trying to do. You wouldn't let us see him in case we couldn't bring the whole him back."

"Which was very good judgement, considering we just spent the last five hours completely useless." Donna had been crying too.

"I'm sorry." I mumbled pathetically.

"No, Daisy, _I'm_ sorry." Rose let go of me and stepped back, looking at me and holding my hands. "I really haven't been a very good sister to you. Popping out of nowhere after twelve years." My eyes widened, I hadn't actually told anyone about that, "Then dragging you on this scavenger hunt with me, and completely ignoring the fact that you're my baby sister."

"We forget how old you are sometimes." admitted Sarah-Jane, "If I didn't know otherwise, I would say you topped all of us in regards to maturity. Including me."

"I would have burst if I'd had to balance all the things you do at your age." Martha seemed kind of impressed.

"I'd have gone running home to mummy I think." Donna shrugged.

I laughed and was suddenly swarmed by companions hugging me. A light appeared behind us and we all turned around, it was The Doctor, smiling that smile of his with his hair ruffled and shirt rumpled. I felt like I was floating on air, but still in the back of my mind was that nagging memory of blasting Jack back who knows how.

"I think I know the perfect place for you to all cool off and unwind a bit." He admitted, "Now the air is clear."

"Sounds like a plan." Jack gave me a sideways glance, "I really need to cool off in particular."

"Perfect." The Doctor grinned.

Then we were all in action stations, we headed through to the control panel. Martha was writing down co-ordinates, Donna was ready to steer, Sarah-Jane was getting K-9 to start another log, Rose was holding on to my arm like sisters proper and Jack was keeping a watchful eye on us. I was still nervous around him. Rose had asked me what had happened to my neck, and I just told her it was an allergy, promptly putting on a polo neck.

"Ok, let's go." Martha set the co-ordinates and Donna drove.

The TARDIS started with a lurch, and Rose and I clung on tight to each other and Martha so none of us fell over. Sarah-Jane looked somewhat seasick but Jack and K-9 were perfectly alright. When they landed, it was surprisingly soft. It bounced slightly. It was also silent. All of us looked at each other, frowning. Things were never usually that smooth. Then the doors flew open and we were sucked into a whirlpool.

It was weird, I was spinning in water, scared to death, and blindly trying to swim around and find Rose and Jack and the others. I was holding my breath and I felt like I was going to burst. Then my feet touched something solid, and unable to hold my breath any longer, I let it out and opened my eyes, expecting to drown.

Instead, I was just a few feet away from the TARDIS, it had landed on a soft sand sea bed, hence the quietness. I was standing on the sand too, and I wasn't wet. I jumped up and swam. I could see, and I could breath. A whirl of bubbles alerted me to the presence of someone else. I swam upwards and grabbed their hand. It was Rose, and a little above us was Jack.

How could I tell them it was ok, we were safe? We weren't going to drown. Using my instinct, I yelled up.

"Jack!" my voice was clear as a bell, "Jack! It's alright! Don't struggle!"

He looked at me like I was mad, I was clutching Rose's wrist, perfectly calm now. He stopped thrashing and we all floated down, landing neatly on the sand. Martha, Donna and Sarah-Jane came out from behind the TARDIS. Sarah-Jane explained that sensibly, K-9 had stayed inside. Water was water, and he was electric and metal.

"Where are we?" Martha asked the question on all our minds.

"This must be the place The Doctor sent us." Sarah-Jane said.

"There doesn't seem to be anyone around." Donna turned her head.

"But look, it's beautiful." Rose was awed.

We all turned and now we had recovered, took in the surroundings. The sand we were standing on was white. Fish were swimming around, and shells were lying on the bottom. The water was perfectly clear. You looked up and we must have been quite deep down, but the sunlight shone through, making little arcs of light bounce around. Brightly coloured coral and other plants waved gently in the tide and it was perfectly silent, apart from us.

"It's like scuba diving without the effort." Donna pointed out.

"We should split up and see if we can find any body." suggested Jack. We all shrugged, agreeing. "Ok. Donna, Martha, Sarah-Jane, you go that way. Rose, Daisy and myself will carry on this way."

I subconsciously gripped Rose's hand tighter. I did _not_ want to be teamed up with Jack. She looked at me concerned, and I made some lame excuse that I was just excited, forcing myself to smile. I think she bought it. We said our goodbyes, wishing each other luck. I drew it out as much as I could get away with, telling Donna, Martha and Sarah-Jane to take care, but then reluctantly I had to follow Captain Jack.

"This defies all logic." said Rose as we walked along the deserted, except for sea life, sand.

"So does everything we've ever seen and done really." Jack replied with a grin.

After walking for maybe thirty minutes, we came to an abrupt halt. We were outside a city. An honest to god city. The walls were made of coral and two big white gates were the only entrance. They seemed to be made of pearl or something. They were guarded by…and I couldn't believe my eyes. A shark and a dolphin. Well, the top part of them were shark and dolphin, but they had very human arms and legs. It was really twisted but they somehow looked, friendly.

"Are we in Atlantis or something?" I asked Rose.

"No, no. Atlantis is further north." said the Dolphin, was he smiling?

"Welcome to Majimji." greeted the Shark.

They both bowed and the gates swung open. We looked at each other, then shrugged and walked in. Jack stopped briefly and discreetly grabbed the back of my sweater so I was delicately disentangled from Rose. My eyes widened and I twisted away from him.

"Wait, Daisy, I won't hurt you. I'm sorry about earlier." hissed Jack.

"That doesn't quite cut it!" I hissed back at him, I 'd gone passed scared and on to angry.

"I promise I can explain myself. But not now. The Doctor asked me to give you this."

He whipped something out of his pocket, and I frowned. It was a silver bracelet, about an inch wide, ornately welded in to twists and curls like a Celtic design, and in the middle was a diamond-shaped black crystal. I frowned as Jack handed over, what on earth?

"He didn't explain. Just told me you won it in a card game or something." Jack shrugged.

It clicked then. He meant the card I had showed him, he had said he had something that might help me. I wondered what it was, but I didn't ask questions, I just slipped it on my left wrist. Rose, a few feet in front of us, called back.

"Are you two coming?" she asked us.

"Right with you Rose." Jack replied. He looked at me. "Please believe me…I didn't want to hurt you."

I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to. I just turned away and ran to catch up with my sister. The city was amazing. It had a very old world feel to it. The houses were basic and a mixture of sea creatures, human-looking people and some a bit of both, like the guards, of all different ages. As we walked down a road people looked at us. They all seemed perfectly friendly.

We came to a kind of market place. There were different stalls all over the place, selling what I presumed was fruit and vegetables, ornaments, sculptures, flowers. There was even a small shack claiming to contain a psychic. I was suddenly greeted with a bunch of flowers in my face. They looked like tulips, but they were yellow, with purple stripes.

I stepped back and looked at the direction from which they had come. It was a boy, maybe a couple of years older than me. He had sandy brown hair, green eyes and a cheeky grin. He was wearing very human like clothes, a white t-shirt, black jeans, and the same red Converse as me.

"Might I be so bold as to ask your name?" his voice was surprisingly scholarly.

"I'm Daisy…who are you?" I frowned.

He shoved the flowers into my hand and I heard Rose and Jack behind me laughing quietly. He bowed like I was royalty or something, it was really embarrassing, and peculiar.

"My name is Alexander Maximilian Morrison. It's a great pleasure to meet you. Who are your friends?" he straightened up,

"Uh, this is my sister Rose and Jack…" I introduced.

"Your brother?" he sounded hopeful.

"Um…"

"Yes, yes, I'm their brother." Jack interrupted me, giving a charming smile and offering his hand, "Nice to meet you Alex."

"You must be new here, am I right?" said Alex, "Then you'll need a guide! I've been here all my life, I'll show you around!"

"We don't want to bother you…" I stuttered.

"No bother at all!" protested Alex. "Come on Miss Daisy, I'll show you the real Majimji!"

He linked arms with me and pulled me away, I looked behind me wide-eyed at my sister and Jack. They just smirked at me and followed, a few paces behind. I sighed, resigning to my fate. But hey, it could be worse. He was kind of cute, and the history of the city was amazing. Everyone seemed to know Alex and kept giving him free samples, which he promptly shared between Rose, Jack and me. After a while, we had covered the whole city. Then I noticed buildings and people getting more scarce as Alex seemed to lead us out of the back gate.

"Alex, where are you taking us?" I demanded, pulling away from him.

"Shh! Please!" he whispered urgently.

He stopped under a shelf of coral several feet away from the city's back gate, pulling me down in to the shadows.

"Alex, what's going on?" asked Rose.

"I warn you kid, I'm armed." Jack growled.

"Please, I don't want to hurt you!" begged Alex, he turned to me. "I know you don't know me. But Daisy Hope Tyler…" he held up my wrist, the one with the strange bracelet on it, "I need your help."


	9. Turning Tides

Turning Tides

Turning Tides

"What?! How do you know my name?" I demanded.

"That's really hard to explain. Please Daisy, you have to help! You're the only one that can!" implored Alex.

"And just how exactly did you come to this conclusion, hm? Help with what?" I really wasn't buying this. Rose and Jack looked at each other.

Alex suddenly looked worried. "Majimji, it's in trouble."

"It looks fine to me." Jack said, guarded.

"That's on the surface, but it's not, it's really not. Three years ago, the King, Jared IX, suddenly disappeared from public view. They said it was illness, but people say he's effectively under house arrest, enforced by his General." Explained Alex.

"And where do I come in to this?" I folded my arms, decidedly gone off the opposite gender.

"You can stop the General!" Alex looked at me like I should know exactly what was going on. When he realised I honestly had no idea, he was crestfallen. Then alarmed. He grabbed my shoulders urgently, "Tell me, when are you from? I need to know, it's important!"

I paused, he knew something. "2023." I finally answered.

His eyes widened, "When? 2023, what month?"

"I left February…must be around March or April now though. Why?"

"Oh, no. No no no no no!" Alex backed away from me, "Oh, this is bad!"

"What?!" now I was the anxious one.

"I think you've crossed your own timeline. Or rather, it's crossed you." answered Jack solemnly.

"_What_?" I rounded on him.

My head was about ready to explode. Rose had vaguely explained how time was not a straight line. It overlapped here and there. Now apparently I was in one of these overlaps, and Alex thought I could save the whole city. God only knows why. I sure as hell didn't. He was panic stricken, going on about how the General was building something that would wipe out the whole city, and those cities around it, and I was evidently the last hope. I remembered what my mum had said to me.

_You go and save the world honey._

Mentally knocking some sense in to myself, I turned to Alex who was white as a sheet. I didn't know what exactly crossing timelines entailed, but I wasn't completely useless, maybe I could help. I could try something.

"Alex, how many people know about this 'General' and the rumours?"

"Oh, everyone. His men march through the streets every night, gathering supplies from people, whether they want to give it or not." Alex shuddered.

"What is he building?"

"We don't know, that's the problem. If we had some idea, we might be able to come up with a way to dismantle it."

"Do you know the layout of his base?"

"Yes. I've been researching for months, with help from one or two insiders."

"So, are you saying that if we find out what this thing is, you have the resources to get to it and destroy it?"

"Yes. The Academy has people standing by."

"The Academy?"

"What Academy?" asked Rose.

Alex clapped his hands over his mouth. Clearly that was something else we weren't supposed to know about, yet. With a bit of coaxing from my sister, she was remarkably good at finding out information, he told us about the Canis Major Academy, a kind of hi-tech school where people trained to be…get this…_space police_! Alex was a cadet and this was his first major mission.

"And I'm failing miserably." He looked so sad, so pathetic, frankly, that I felt bad for him.

"Oh, suck it up. We just need to get to the castle or whatever it is, find out what that thing is and dispose of it." I shrugged.

"Easy, are you joking? Do you know how well guarded that place is, and everyone in the city is too afraid to do anything to help!" at least he looked less defeated now.

"Good job we have a team of investigators who _aren't_ in the city then."

I wandered off a few feet, and got my phone. Heck, if I could talk, walk and breathe under water, why not put in a call? Martha picked up almost instantly, completely confused. I explained we had found at city, and it needed help. They arrived in ten minutes and met us under the coral shelf. The introductions were brief because we needed to get down to business.

Alex led us west of the city, without going back through the gate. We stayed out of sight but surrounded by it's own set of walls was your average castle, like you found in fairy stories or in the National Trust or something. It was all perfectly white, dazzling in fact. It was very heavily guarded by shark people, dolphin people, a few eel people too. It was surreal, I felt like I had taken something I shouldn't. There were only two gates. The main gate and some kind of back exit. It was huge. Alex knelt down and spread out the map he never let out of his sight. The rooms were all interconnected, like at art galleries. I remember once getting lost in the Tate in London, when I visited with my mum and dad because we'd all gone out of different doors. He explained that it was designed to be easy to find your way around, if you kept going in the same direction. Always east, always west etc. It was only when you tried different routes it got complicated.

I looked around and could see everyone mentally trying to remember the map and the instructions. We were all hoping that such a big place wouldn't really notice such a small group of people.

The first thing to sort out was who was going to go in the front door, and who was going to go in the back. The decision was fairly easy to make. Jack, Martha and Alex all had some kind of training that would make them more passable as soldiers, or recruits interested in being soldiers. They had that kind of authority about them that made it so.

That left me with Sarah-Jane, who being a journalist could talk her way out of or in to anything; teamed up with Donna, together they could probably talk people into submission if all else failed; or at least buy us some time. Rose and I were good at doing the sneaking around and slipping in to things bit because Rose had plenty of experience from travelling with The Doctor and I, quite frankly, was a sixteen year old girl.

"So tell me again, what we're doing, and why we're doing it?" asked Donna, the least enthusiastic.

"Just trust me." How on earth I had suddenly managed to put myself in charge I don't know. I turned to Alex, Martha and Jack. "You guys know what to do, ok? Find out where this thing is being kept, then direct us there. The beauty of Bluetooth is that you can talk to me without anyone realising it, my set'll be on the whole time, ok?"

"You'd be a good cadet." Alex said, finally looking hopeful.

"I have no interest in combat thanks." I replied seriously. I gave Martha a good luck hug, "Take care of yourselves. If everything works out, we'll meet you half way."

"We'll meet you half way." said Jack confidently.

So we split. Sarah-Jane, Donna, Rose and myself ducked down to see the first stage went as planned. It was kind of scary to see our friends, Alex too I supposed, suddenly go in to army mode. They were like completely different people. They started talking to one of the eel guards, these ones looked considerably less friendly than the ones in Majimji. I squinted trying to lip read. Jack was apparently finding Worcester hard or wondering if they needed more guards, which made more sense.

After a little deliberation they were led in and Rose and I high-fived. On their own now. My ear crackled, someone was trying to get me. This all felt very commando, and highly peculiar. I touched the button and Alex's voice came on the channel.

"We're in. They've gone to find the General. Jack's asking the others about this machine. I'll let you know when we find out." He clicked off.

"I guess it's time for phase two." I realised.

"Lead on Captain." Teased Donna.

"Please don't." I groaned.

How had I gone from wanting my mummy to sticking around in a time where I had no advantages over a General who was building an unidentified machine, just because I felt I had to for some reason. I had done a complete 180 degrees flip and I had the horrible feeling things were slowly getting out of my control. Especially after somehow teleporting into Martha's mind as I had apparently done in the 1980s and somehow throwing Jack flying through the air just this morning. What on earth was going on?

I didn't have time to dwell on it as a nudge in the small of my back from Rose urged me to slip to the castle wall, pressing close against it so I couldn't be seen from the top, the other three copied me and we side-stepped around to a closed wooden door. There were no guards, which was a bonus, but there was a really big padlock.

"Emergency exit?" shrugged Sarah-Jane.

She grabbed her sonic lipstick, pointing it at the lock. It made a slight buzz, and then the catch clicked open. I pushed the door open a crack, just to see what lay in store. It was a storage room, for fuel I presumed from the canisters. There wasn't anybody there. The room was made of stone, very medieval, cold and dark and empty. There were three other exits apart from the one we had come in, on each wall.

"Left, right, centre?" I asked them.  
The sound of marching game from the right. "Not that way." advised Donna.

No, definitely not. We set off left, sliding along the wall. I resisted the urge to laugh, it reminded me of the man hunt games I used to play when I was small, but thought it would be entirely inappropriate in this situation. Sarah-Jane took the lead and I was quite happy to let her, it was like she'd broken in to a castle before or something. We walked out into a room that seemed almost to be an auditorium, with a stage one end, and lots of stone benches in front of it.

"Guess they want educated troops." Rose whispered to me.

"Shh!" Sarah-Jane waved us all down.

We hid behind some of the stone benches, it really must have been uncomfortable for long periods of time. Three soldiers, one shark, one tortoise and one goldfish or something, came through the south door holding what looked kind of like guns but they were flashing. Lasers?

The shark turned to the tortoise, "Rumour has it, The General's almost ready."

The goldfish peered around the tortoise's shoulder, "And they're moving the incubator to the courtyard. So I was told up on fourth anyway."

The tortoise looked a little sad, "My partner went to be a beta tester. I hope it worked."

They carried on the conversation, their voices fading as they walked out through the north. The four of us looked at each other. An incubator. That was probably not good, incubators hatched things, at least that was the first thing that came in to my head. Something else that came in to my head, or at least my ear, was Jack's voice.

"We're in the basement level, apparently we have to pass some kind of test to get through." He informed us.

"Do you think you can do it?" asked Sarah-Jane, leaning in to me.

"I can, easy. I don't know about the kid though." He actually sounded a little worried.

"Alex?" I asked. Of course, who else. "What about Martha?"

"She's got fight in her, but she seems to…"

His voice ended abruptly in a bang and a piercing whistle that did my head in, it was so painful I grabbed the ear piece and threw it as far away from me as I could, but I could still hear a horrible ringing in my ears. Donna put her arm around me as Rose picked up the device.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

I nodded, "But I bet somebody heard that."

"We best get moving then." A shout from the west, "Fast!"

"The basement!" cried Sarah-Jane, "Come on, I think it's this way."

We picked ourselves up and legged it south, a flare of some sort glanced off the stonework just behind Rose as we left the auditorium. There was a group of various sea creatures behind us as we found ourselves in a kind of hallway, with a big stair case and again, doors on all walls. Up the staircase I could hear more feet, down the staircase, you couldn't see your hand in front of your face it was that dark.

"Down it is." Sarah-Jane went first, Donna right behind.

I grabbed Rose's hand and we ran downstairs together, trying not to stand on Donna or Sarah-Jane or lose each other as we plunged into darkness. The last thing we needed was to trip over heels. So of course, that was what happened. Rose got tangled up with Donna, and as I was holding on to her she dragged me down with her and we dove headfirst down the stairs. Instinctively I ducked and rolled, trying not to break my neck. It was bloody painful, I kept banging my elbows and knees. Eventually, dizzy, I landed at the bottom on my rear end, sore and aching, with collective groans surrounding me.

"Are you all ok?" Sarah-Jane had managed to get out of the way, she called down from behind us.

"I'm alive, that's about all I can claim." Grumbled Donna.

"Daisy, Daisy where are you?" called Rose, reaching forward, her hand brushed my arm and I grabbed it.

I moved my hand blindly in front of me to find Donna, I got her shoulder and helped her up. It was like being blind I imagine. The only way I knew roughly where the others were was because I could feel their breath and body heat. I had Rose in one hand, Donna in the other, and I think Rose had Sarah-Jane. We stayed still for a moment. We couldn't hear anything apart from ourselves, we were alone.

"A little light on the subject Sarah-Jane?" I whispered. It felt like a whispering moment.

Sarah-Jane got out that nifty little lipstick of hers and flicked it on. A small red glow illuminated the room we were in. It was enough for us not to have to cling on to each other, but not enough for us to stray too far away. We were in a little square room, that had only one way out apart from the stairs, a double doorway. We could hardly go up again, so we braced ourselves and went in. What we saw was not pleasant. It was some kind of holding cell, four narrow metal cages lined up against the wall, with six double cots in each. They all seemed empty.

"Oh, god." Donna pulled a face.

"What is this place?" Rose shuddered.

"We have to get them out."

I was surprised there was no-one on guard, why was no-one on guard? Perhaps they were out searching for the intruders. That would be us. The place seemed pretty empty. Rose suddenly went very still, she had spotted something, in the furthest cell, a heap.

I know curiosity killed the cat, but I had to see what it was, so I detached myself from the others and walked forward, very slowly. I could see the light of Sarah-Jane's lipstick over my shoulder, she was ready to act if she needed. I caught a familiar flash of blue and my walk turned in to a run.

"It's Jack!" I cried. "Jack, Jack, it's us!" I called, rattling the bars.

Nothing, not the mildest response. Sarah-Jane fiddled with the lock and it swung open, the four of us piled inside, kneeling down by Jack. I leaned down to feel for a pulse, and noticed a bloody patch on his jacket, just below his ribcage, something seemed to have shot and burned at the same time. I felt his neck…and there was nothing.

"Oh my god." My stomach turned to ice, "He's dead!"

Just then, he suddenly sat bolt upright, grabbing my arm instinctively. The others, startled, scrambled back, but he had me. He started choking and panting, then turned his blue eyes on me.

"Daisy, nice to see you." He looked down, seeing the state of his clothes. "Oh, I was dead again, wasn't I?" I nodded, not saying a word. My heart was beating so fast I was sure it would break out of my chest.

"What happened? Where are the others?" Sarah-Jane, all business.

"I don't know. I passed, they didn't. I was brought here, got a bit ratty with one of the guards and well, the rest is history."

"Blooming marvellous." Groaned Donna.

"We have to find them!" Rose looked anxious.

"We will. I have an idea where they went." assured Jack.

"The courtyard by any chance?" asked Sarah-Jane.

"How did you…?" Jack looked at her.

"We eavesdropped." I shrugged.

"Come on." Decided Jack.

"We can't go back up there!" protested Rose.

"We have to."

At least we had a gun this time, and a death proof shield. Kind of. We stopped at the bottom of the stairs and listened. It was really quiet. Unnervingly quiet. We kept silent and Jack waved for us to follow him up, which we did, Sarah-Jane bringing up the rear so we could all see our feet. We came up in to that room again and Jack took us west. The people who had been chasing us seemed to have mysteriously vanished.

"I think they've been redirected." Jack told us, "Something more important than a few intruders. It's like they don't think anyone can stop them now."

Except me apparently, according to Alex anyway. Which I thought was a load of bull. Jack said he'd heard them talking whilst he had been dying in his cell, about evolution and upgrades. Martha and Alex were described as useless as humans. Rose gripped my wrist, nervous. I think her first thought was, Cybermen?

"If Martha's useless as a human," growled Donna, annoyed, "Then I'm Indiana Jones."

"And Alex is only a couple years older than me!" I agreed. He'd barely lived yet, how could he be a useless human?

I only noticed then that things had gotten a lot brighter. We were heading outside. Jack flattened himself against the wall as we came to an open archway. There were three guards spread out along a walkway surrounding and looking down into a big square courtyard, and now we were on the walk way too. One of the guards spotted us and I somehow recognised him as the first dolphin we met, outside the city. His shark partner was next to him, and they both looked nervous. The third was an eel, which they both promptly disposed of on seeing us. Acting natural, they waved us along and we stepped out.

It was dazzling, the sun must have been really high because there was more glare than before. Looking through the gaps in the balustrade I could see that we were really high up. The various gathered around there looked tiny. The walkway spanned the whole courtyard, hanging over it. Down below was a big stone platform and people standing and sitting, arranged a bit like The Globe Theatre.

"How did you get here?" asked the shark.

"Why did you come?" asked the dolphin.

"They have our friends." replied Rose.

"And we don't much like it." backed up Donna.

I let them get on with explaining themselves, those two guards were two of the insiders that Alex had spoken about and apparently the two human soldiers opposite them were their partners, arrived from The Academy. I was more interested in the stage. On it was what looked like a giant test tube in a metal rack. Behind it was someone dressed in finery, also human looking, that I presumed was Jared IX. On his right was an alligator man, dressed only slightly less fancily than the King. The General? Then I saw to the King's left were three very small figures, two of whom I recognised right away.

"That's them! That's Martha and Alex! What are they doing down there?" I demanded.

"They're you're friends?" The dolphin sounded sympathetic, "Then I'm afraid you can't get them back."

"What?! Why!?" Jack was suddenly on edge again.

"Listen and you'll find out."

The General stepped forward and the murmuring that had been circulating abruptly ceased. His voice boomed over everything and I jumped, there must have been loudspeakers hidden somewhere.

"Ladies, gentlemen, and…others." He began, "The process is finally complete!"

Everyone cheered, I expected out of fear, "But it also has yet to begin!"

OK, colour me confused. He went on about an overhaul, deposing the King, a new world, a world that wasn't weak and soft with humanity. A world kept in order because order would be drilled into every soldier. No wars, no fighting, but to me it sounded like a prison.

"Behold, the people of the future!"

The third person with Martha and Alex, was a man, maybe Jack's age. Original age. He was shackled and led over by two eels. They took the cuffs off him, but a door on the test tube opened and they pushed him in. Everyone drew in breath, and myself and the others all tensed. A demonstration. I knelt down, I suppose I was trying to get closer, gripping the stone banisters. I could feel that man's fear and it stung my eyes.

There was a bright green flash in the tube, like a camera going off. I had dots in front of my eyes, as did everyone else, so it took a minute to focus.

When I did, my blood ran cold. Standing in place of that poor man, was one of the Inanis' soldiers. Completely metal, features indistinguishable. I realised with horror that The General was giving the King three chances to abdicate. One was down, and the other two were Alex and Martha.

"We have got to get down there!" cried Jack.

"How?" Rose, Donna and me all asked at the same time.

Jack ran around the walkway, shouting and drawing attention to himself. Everyone turned and looked at him and I realised what he was doing. He had run the opposite direction to us, leaving the part above the stage to be free, if we timed it well.

"You're joking! This won't help the universe, it will destroy it!" he chastened.

He shot at The General and all manner of soldiers, fish and people descended on him as we crouched on the floor, hidden by the balustrade. Nobody would have noticed if we hadn't done that, because everyone was after Jack. Sarah-Jane clicked her lipstick in to action, aiding him.

"Jack?!" I heard Martha's voice.

I ran around the outside, passed doors and windows, Donna and Rose right behind me. A small troop suddenly burst from the castle, and two grabbed Rose, two grabbed Donna.

"Rose! Donna!" I cried.

"Just go, we'll handle the barnacle crew!" shouted Donna.

I didn't know what I was meant to do when I got there, I had no plans at all, and another soldier, had started running towards me. He was on the opposite of the walkway to be sure, but even if it was huge, I couldn't run in circles. Well, squares. The two sea creature's partners saw me.

"There should be a panel on the back, a computer keyboard!" cried one of them, "Type in 01SID2589/4517RAT10!" cried the other.

I had to actually get down there first, and it was a really long way. I was directly above the stage, Alex and Martha looking at me and The General pointing a gun at me, smirking.

"Oh, you'd make a good soldier. Too bad we didn't find you earlier!"

He fired and I screamed, ducking for cover. It was a laser bullet, a big one. It flew over my head, then rebounded off…thin air? Then took out The General himself. The spare soldier was only metres away from me, he shot, he missed too. But he hit the floor. The impact cracked the walkway. I suddenly lost my feet from under me as it collapsed, and I was falling; falling on to a hard stone stage.

"Daisy!" It was Martha.

I closed my eyes, waiting for the life to be crushed out of me. Instead, I heard a rush of movement, and I landed in something. I opened my eyes, and realised it was Alex's arms. I thought it was Alex. But he seemed…older? He set me down, and then disappeared in a flash. I hadn't noticed until now that everything had frozen around me, from flames to fallen soldiers to dust from masonry. As soon as he went, everything came rushing back to the present. Martha and Alex were watching me.

"You just flew!" exclaimed Alex.

"What?" Yea, right.

"You were falling and then you suddenly stopped, and…" Martha blinked, like she couldn't quite perceive me standing in front of her.

"Yea, I don't know what happened either."

I wrestled with their shackles and freed them, hugging both of them, even Alex, so glad to see them again. The King was looking at me strangely. I'd quite forgotten he was even there. He hadn't run, like I expected he would as his guards had gone. Instead he just gave me the funniest look. Was it stare at Daisy day or something?

My attention moved to other things when I heard a shout across the way. It was someone who looked just like the General, only smaller. The tin man was at his side, and Donna, Jack, Sarah-Jane and Rose were being held by fish guards.

"You killed my brother!" roared General Junior.

"I did _not._ He killed himself." I shot back. "Let them go!"

"Never. I will carry on my brother's legacy."

"Unless I'm mistaken, I believe I'm in charge here." It was Jared IX. He had a nice voice, soft but firm. "And I will not have you hurt the people that saved me."

He clicked his fingers and the guards that had stuck on his side crawled out of the woodwork. Including the people from The Academy. There were far more of them than General Junior had realised. But he wasn't so easily shaken. Martha and Alex were suddenly restrained as well. I was piggy in the middle, again.

"I wouldn't shoot if I were you. In case you miss." Snarled General Junior.

"What is it you want? Me? My throne?" asked the King calmly.

"No." There was a very long pause, and then all eyes suddenly fixed on me, "Her."

"What?!" I cried, "Why _me?!_"

"Don't question me girl, else your friends get it!" he snapped.

That shut me up. "OK, ok, whatever. Let them go, let them go and you can have me!"

"Daisy, don't you dare!" argued Rose.

It was a swift exchange. The six of them were disarmed and released, and I was suddenly being propelled towards the tube. We had forgotten about it until now. Rose suddenly made a move to type in the code and was cut off. I looked warily at the tin man. Was this my fate then? Metal soldier, no identity?

"Bye then." I croaked.

"Daisy, Daisy no!" cried Rose.

They pushed me into the tube and closed the door. General Junior took great delight in flicking the switch and I winced as I suddenly felt like I was being squeezed in to something. I felt hotter and hotter, more and more pressure bearing down on me. Then there was a flash of purple and I saw absolutely nothing.

When I woke up, I expected to have no thoughts or feeling. Instead, I ached from the roots of my hair to my toenails. My mouth felt like it was full of cotton wool, my head like I had been drinking too much. I blinked, my eyes opening, and I was staring into hazel eyes identical to mine. As the rest of the scene swam in to focus I realised I was on some kind of balcony, in a recliner. The sun shone down on me and Jack was leaning over Rose's shoulder.

"What the hell?" I had no voice left.

"Morning sunshine." Rose suddenly squeezed me so tight I could barely breathe, and quite frankly it was painful, but I couldn't protest.

I slowly sat up. I realised I was at the top of the castle, and just below me was a roof top garden. It smelled sweet, and the colours were beautiful. Rose tried to explain what had happened. They had all been expecting me to go all female warrior on them, but just at the usual turning point, the whole machine exploded. Knocked everyone for six (well, me for twelve, possibly eighteen) but it seemed to break some kind of hypnosis and General Junior and his buddies couldn't remember what had happened. She said to say that Alex said thank you, but had to go, because his mission was finished. I felt a little pang when she told me that. Don't know why, I haven't felt it before, and I wanted to ask him how he'd saved me.

After a while, Jack quietly asked Rose if he could have a word with me in private. She agreed and walked down white steps from this ledge and into the garden. Jack perched on the recliner next to me.

"So, about me going psycho. Sorry again, by the way." He quipped.

I just looked at him, blankly. "What is it Jack?"

"I just snapped. You know about Torchwood, right?" I nodded, "Well, I have a group of very close friends there. My team. We've been to hell and back together, pretty much literally. Only, a few months ago." His face darkened. I let him gather himself and said nothing. "I lost them. Two of them. They died horribly. At the same time, I lost my brother again. Fact of the matter was, absolutely everything was entirely my fault."

"Surely that's not true." I felt my frostiness towards him melt.

"Oh, but it is. My cowardice, my failure. I wasn't there when they needed me the most." Much to my alarm his eyes watered. Instinctively I put a hand on his arm, and he put his over mine. "The thing with The Doctor is. I thought, if only I could just find him. He could put things right, straighten time out. But the longer it was before I saw him again, the worse and worse it felt. I had nightmares. So when I found out I could have had nearly two months sweet relief, spared a lot of people a lot of pain, and you'd hidden it from me…"

"You tried to throttle me."

He laughed slightly, "Well, yea." He looked at me, "I thought I should just tell you, so you won't be afraid of me. You were right to do what you did, it was very wise of you."

"I'm really sorry about your friends Jack. If there's anything I can do…"

He stood up, "You've already done it. You're a good kid Daisy. Don't ever forget that."

He walked away. My necklace glowed slightly, I was surprised it hadn't been annihilated. I held it up, and right in front of my eyes, two perfect round stones appeared, one green, and one blue. A decidedly solid looking Doctor appeared in front of me. I could have sworn he was really there, but if you looked close enough, he still wasn't quite whole.

"Nice to see you." He grinned.

"Good to see you too. Any idea what on earth is going on with me?" I challenged. "I sent Jack flying through the air without lifting a finger and I blew up an alien in Martha's mind."

"Oh, nothing to worry about. You know everyone has latent psychic ability? They're just too lazy to exercise more of their brains. Yours has just become less latent and more…active."

"_That_ is nothing to worry about?" I stared at him. "How?"

"I'm working on that one. Any other questions?"

"How did that machine explode perhaps?"

"Well, you only seem to be able to use your…abilities in surges of extreme emotion."

"Like absolute terror?"

"Yes. Look, Daisy. I'm working on it, honest. But you did good today. It's nice to at least see everyone again, if nothing else. You rest up a while and I'll get back to you, alright?"

"I suppose."

He disappeared and I wandered down the steps into the garden. I found Rose leaning against a small fence that looked out across the way and into the city. I lowered myself down and stiffly sat next to her. Something seemed to be bothering her. I leaned against her, completely exhausted.

"You did good Daisy." She whispered.

That was the third time someone had said that to me. Why did I feel like they weren't telling me something? "It was a team effort."

"Partially."

"Oh, by the way, mum sends her love."

"So does dad."

She leaned her head on my shoulder and I put an arm around her as the sun went down.


	10. Dark Side of the Moon

Dark Side of the Moon

Dark Side of the Moon

When the TARDIS landed, it was completely dark and eerily quiet. None of us particularly wanted us to venture out, but we knew we had to, this was our next destination. I looked around at all the faces of my friends and it seemed to me as if they had the same feelings of loss and uncertainty, which had only come on since we landed here. It was horrible, I felt like I was on the edge of tears but there was nothing to cry about. The unusual solemness of everybody else seemed to be telling me that they had the same indescribable despair suddenly oppressing them.

"I don't want to go out there." whispered Donna to me, I happened to be standing nearest to her. "It makes me want to cry just being here."

I put an arm around her shoulders, "You and me both."

We wondered what it was, a dead planet maybe. An intergalactic cemetery? The usual things that would make you feel uneasy. I noticed nearly all of us had moved instinctively away from the door, leaning on the far walls or the control panel, except Jack I think he felt responsible for us mere females. He put his gun in its holster and turned to us.

"We have to do this you know." he reminded us.

We knew. The Doctor hadn't put in an appearance since we landed and we didn't know why. After several minutes standing in silence and anxiety we slowly moved forward as one. Jack hesitantly pushed open the TARDIS door, and we all braced ourselves, him pulling out his gun as he walked out first. I saw the back of him replace it, there seemed to be no threat.

"It's alright." He assured us. "No-one's here."

Slightly less nervous we filed out of the TARDIS doors, which slammed shut behind us, like she didn't want to see what we were seeing. It was mainly dark with a faint coppery light surrounding wherever it was that we were. It was freezing cold, and we huddled together, pulling our coats around us as an icy wind tugged at our hair. There was nothing anywhere. Just craters and boulders and sharp stalagmite type things standing up all over the place.

"Is this the moon?" asked Sarah-Jane quietly.

"No. It's a moon I think, just not _the_ moon." replied Martha confidently. "I've been to the moon."

"And last time I checked, earth wasn't orange." pointed out Rose.

We all turned our gaze in the direction of whatever this satellite was orbiting. It seemed to be about earth sized. Of course I've never actually seen the earth up close in outer space first hand. It was mostly black, the planet we were staring at, with just the very hint of saffron, like extremely burnished copper. It was depressing to look at, so we tore our eyes away.

"It's freezing." Donna shivered.

"Why in heaven's name we were brought here?" Sarah-Jane didn't sound impressed. "Can you get a read on anything K-9?"

"Negative Mistress. Atmospheric disturbance." answered the little tin dog.

"Come on, let's get walking." Decided Martha, "It'll warm us up if nothing else."

We all agreed with that so slowly we made our way forward, not sure what other direction to head in. There were no sounds at all except the whistle of the wind passed our ears and our feet crunching on gravel and clumps of what I think was dirt and rock. It was like it had been hit by a nuclear bomb or something.

Donna and I happened to be walking a little behind the others; I don't think we wanted to stray far from the TARDIS. I sure didn't anyhow. My foot crunched on something and I quickly lifted it, it had sounded like glass or something. Something was glinting in the ground; I don't think I had broken it, just buried it deeper. I reached forward.

"Don't touch it!" cried Donna, "You don't know where it's been!"

I ignored her, and picked it up. A once gold chain entwined itself around my fingers, attached to a once-gold, thick ring, encasing a little glass ball, around the size of the top of your average light bulb. A smaller ring crossed it, like string on a parcel. The way it was arranged, I imagined it had swung around a bit like a compass before it rusted up. I brushed my thumb across the glass to get the dirt off and looked inside. Empty.

"Oh, that's lovely. A rusty old metal ball." Donna rolled her eyes. Then stared at me, "Oh, you're not thinking…"

Yes, I was. I pocketed it. Martha called us from in front so we made a move to join them, only my foot went through something. Next I knew Donna and I were falling in to a hollow, the roof collapsing around us, blocking off everything. We landed with a thud on a surface like very hard soil. Rubble showered down on us, so much we couldn't see the gap we had come through when we looked up.

"Donna! Daisy!" I heard the muffled voices of the others calling.

"Are you alright?" that was definitely Rose.

I stood up, we had fallen maybe ten metres. I was amazed we hadn't incurred more damage. I yelled up as loud as I could that we were fine, but couldn't get out. I looked around. It seemed to be a network of tunnels, just about tall enough for us to stand upright in, but someone like The Doctor might have had trouble.

"Looks like a tunnel! We'll follow it; see if we can get out. Got your phone on you?" I shouted to my sister.

She replied in the positive and I turned to Donna. Which way should we go? I don't think she knew either. We wandered left; there were fewer branches to get confused by. Not so long after, we both stopped, having heard something that sounded like running. We ducked down behind a boulder as it got nearer; the space was so small Donna was practically sitting on my lap. She leaned on my shoulder and looked over my head in the direction the noise was coming from.

"We've got company." She whispered to me.

"I see that. Please can you remove your elbow from my spine?" I growled quietly.

"Sorry."

The company was two people, they looked human. One was a girl with blonde hair which had the front bits dyed blue. She was wearing a leather boob tube, leather trousers and black boots. I think both Donna and I immediately thought 'Matrix'. She even had a gun complete with holster on her hip. Her partner was a really tall boy with spiky brown hair, wearing a dog collar and all in black. _Goth Squad_. I thought. He seemed to be unarmed.

"Who's there? We know it's somebody." Called the girl.

"Unless you jump us we're not gonna shoot you." Added the boy.

Well that was cheerful. Partly because my legs were cramping, and partly because Donna was nervously keeping extremely close to me, I stood up, walking out. Now I could see them, the two looked only a few years older than me. Somewhere between me and my sister. The girl had her gun in my face.

"You can put that away." I said, sounding a lot cooler than I felt.

Grumbling, Donna crept out and joined me as the girl holstered her weapon. We just sort of stood there for a few minutes staring at each other, neither me and Donna nor the boy and girl really knew what to say next. Finally the blonde looked me up and down; she was a good few inches shorter.

"Who are you, and how did you get here?" she questioned.

I shrugged, "I'm Daisy, this is Donna, and we fell. Who are you?"

"Name's Grace. This is Hal." She replied.

"Great. Now where are we?" asked Donna, cutting to the chase.

"You don't know? This is The Dark Side." Answered Hal.

"Do you have cookies?" the pair looked at Donna like she was nuts, and I hid a chuckle.

Deciding they might as well show us around, Grace and Hal walked through the tunnels like there were no choices at all, and stuck for options, we just followed them. I frowned; sure I could hear music coming in from somewhere. I looked around for speakers. Donna seemed to do the same. It got louder the further we walked. Then all of a sudden, coloured lights were flashing everywhere, the music was hurting my eardrums and we were in a night club. How on earth a night club got here I had no idea. But sure enough, there was a bar in the corner, tables scattered around and a stage in the middle. All the people there were dressed in as much black as our guides.

"A club? There's a night club under a moon?" Donna, or me for that matter, couldn't quite believe it.

Grace smirked, "Where better to put something you don't want just _anyone_ to drop in to." I think she was hinting at something there.

Hal looked around, "Not many people here tonight."

I stared around. The dance floor, bar, tables, everything was jam packed. I raised an eyebrow at the guy. They must be speaking a different language to suggest the club was empty.

"Most people stay inside at the moment." Explained Grace, slightly less cold than she had been before. "Too scared."

Donna and I looked at each other. She turned to her, "Scared of what?"

"The demons." Hal said simply.

"Demons?" That did not sound good. I actually didn't mind Donna stepping nearer to me this time.

"You heard right. Demons." Grace regarded us coolly. "Most people think they're ghosts and by setting up here we're destroying some old cemetery or something. We figured when we first found this place that if everyone was dead, they wouldn't be needing it. All of us are outcasts you see. Exiled from our own planets for the stupidest reasons. They call us terrorists, we call ourselves Freedom Fighters. But anyway, a lot of people reckon the long lost are out for revenge."

"Which is the most plausible explanation we have." announced Hal.

"Plausible?" Donna raised an eyebrow.

The music cut off and a siren sounded, red and blue lights started flashing all over the place and people scattered. Grace and Hal looked at each other and we were joined by another four black clad young adults, with large guns. Grace turned to us.

"Fight or flight?" she asked.

In answer, I swiped one of the spare weapons being offered to us. Donna looked at me like I was mad, but she followed suit. I figured, what better way to investigate these demons than going out and finding them. Of course I had never asked stopped to think about asking why people were so afraid of these demons. Did they kill people? Haunt people? Hurt people? Too late for that, the eight of us ran across the club, heading for the back exit. I hadn't the slightest idea how to wield a gun. I'm not sure Donna was much better prepared either. The lights and the siren were a memory behind us as we ran into dim, cold and dusty tunnels.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except the running through underground passages with guns. Then there was a sudden hush and the group stopped, manoeuvring back to back so they were in a circle, all facing outwards in a different direction. Not quite sure what to do, Donna and I ducked into a little hollow. A wind that sent shivers down my spine and raised goose bumps on my arms blew through the tunnels.

It looked to me like the walls were moving, but things suddenly started coming out of them. They were human shaped shadows, with no features, no faces and genderless. They instantly focused on the group in front of them and descended, cuts and scratches appeared all over them without being physically seen. They shot back, they weren't bullets, they seemed to be little pea-sized points of light. They had the same effect though, the shadows split right down the middle of where the bullets hit and dissolved, howling in rage and pain.

Donna looked horrified. I knew she was sensitive to this kind of thing so I squeezed her hand for comfort, and she didn't let go. I cocked my weapon, though I was reluctant to use it, as some of the shadows detached from the group and made a bee line for us. I waited for the stinging to start, but I didn't feel anything. Nor did Donna. They hadn't hurt us, so I wasn't going to shoot them.

Instead things had fallen a lot quieter around us as two of these ghost things floated around us, bending down and walking around, looking at us. More had even detached from the group, who had stopped dead, staring at us in disbelief. I let my gun drop and Donna and I clung to each other as we were surrounded by more and more. I could have sworn I felt fingertips flutter over me and lift my chin. Hal and Grace ran over, arms at the ready.

"Don't you dare." Ordered Donna. They actually stopped.

I couldn't see Grace, Hal and the others for the density of these shadows, but I felt a tugging at my heart strings. A hand pointed at my pocket and I didn't realise what they wanted. Until Donna whipped out the now glowing ball thing and held it up. It was snatched from her eagerly. Something weird happened then, the gold begun to shine and the dirt melted off the glass. I thought my eyes might be playing tricks on me but whenever I caught sight of something through the glass, it seemed to gain colour, just the odd spot, the same size as the ball.

"Donna, do you see that?" I whispered. She nodded.

The shadow reached forward and put the chain around Donna's neck. Donna tensed beside me and clutched my arm. The weird ball thing was shining tangerine. I don't know what she was seeing when she looked around the caverns, but it was something that struck her dumb. Tears started rolling down her cheeks and I hurriedly put an arm around her, leaning forward to see what was wrong. I was close enough for her to adjust the long chain, so it hung around my neck too. I didn't see anything different for a moment, then the caves seemed to light up for me.

It was strange, from the centre of the ball, colour spread out like shock waves or a scratch card, slowly revealing a picture. The shadows changed in to the shapes of men, women and children, barely visible, like a double exposed film. I dared a glance at Hal, Grace and their soldiers, and their clothes went from black to the kind of style and colours I would recognise back home. It was like an optical illusion when you suddenly find what you're looking for and a picture is revealed to you.

"What on earth?" I murmured.

"It's a trick! Gotta be! Rookie mistake!" exclaimed Grace.

Donna stood up, so I did too. "Oh yea?"

She took the chain off us. Although I could see things like they had been before, I wasn't afraid. She hung it around Grace's neck. It was a transformation, slow at first, then her face lost the hardness and the front she had put up was cut straight through. It was slowly passed around the group, until it finally found it's way back to Donna.

She looked at me. "I think I know where we are." Then turned to Hal, "How do we get back to the surface?"

The shadows followed us as we walked through the tunnels, all in a thoughtful silence. It might have been me, but things seemed to be getting warmer. The tunnels were less cramped and I think fresh air was coming through. We eventually came to some steps cut out of clay and walked up them. There was a steel trap door above us, which Hal pushed up and back as we all climbed out.

The shadow things soared over head, like they had been trapped in the tunnels for years. Centuries even. Perhaps they had. As soon as us were all out, the shadows had melted away in to the night sky. The copper light was stronger here, like when the moon is full and gives everything a silver glow, enough to see by. A cry caused us to jump and turn. Rose and the others were running in our direction. We were practically where we were before. The TARDIS was literally just a few feet away from us and that poor dead planet was plain to see.

After hugged greetings and awkward introductions (This is Hal, Grace, and their army) Donna explained what had happened. She had a theory, well, it wasn't a theory. She had been told it by the ghosts. We worked out the central point to stand with the ball. She held it up, and the planet below us fitted perfectly in the middle from this distance. It floated up, out of her hand. There was a splash, like a single drop of water, and the tiniest speck of colour appeared on the planet. Then it spread and it was like watching everything in reverse on a huge screen. The ground went from scarred and scorched to a golden orange colour, buildings put themselves up from rubble and patches of silver appeared. At the top of the planet a bigger glass globe un-shattered and showed a citadel. The two dead suns either side blazed in to life.

"Oh my god." Rose whispered.

"It's just like he told me…" agreed Martha, awestruck.

"It's a sight for sore eyes." Sarah-Jane was choked up.

"Affirmative." Put in K9.

"Is this?" Jack realised.

Grace asked what on earth we were going on about. Donna explained that this dead planet was called Gallifrey. It had been thoroughly devastated in a huge war. The demons were the echoes of the past, the soldiers and civilians that had died, trapped in that form and the place by corrupt memories. They only attacked when threatened, because their mindset was still war and they had to defend everything to their last breath, last glimmer of life. When she had finished, the chain dropped back in to her hand. She passed it over to me for safe keeping.

"So, they won't bother us any more?" ventured Hal.

Donna shook her head. "No. But do me a favour. Don't forget them."

With the magic of the moment broken, the planet was destroyed again in slow motion, exploding and collapsing silently. There wasn't a dry eye on the moon. Grace and Hal promised to do as Donna instructed as we all trailed back to the TARDIS. The others explained how they had ducked in to a few caves of their own to try and find us, and had got nothing but buildings so destroyed only the foundations seemed to be left and a kind of barely recognisable graveyard.

"Imagine being out there in all that." commented Martha.

"I'd rather not." I said blankly.

The TARDIS opened her own doors for us, like she was welcoming us back. I know the thought at the forefront of all our minds was The Doctor, where he was, and if we could help. We decided that he would probably want to be alone for now, all having gotten to know him.

It was later that night that I was sitting in my room with Donna that he put in an appearance. We understood each other a lot more now, so we were just generally getting to know each other and winding down. She was letting me try out hairstyles that mum had taught me when he suddenly faded in to existence, just in front of our closed door. My arms stopped moving and I dropped them to my sides and we looked at each other.

"Hello." He greeted sadly.

"Hi." We chorused.

"I'm so sorry Doctor. It must have been horrible." Donna stood up, then remembered she couldn't hug him and stopped.

"It was."

This felt like a conversation that went over my head, and I made a move to leave them to it, but The Doctor stopped me by trying to touch my arm. I gasped, for a split second I thought I had felt the slightest warmth. I had six stones now, the latest one was a beautiful indigo. I think it must have been Donna's. Two thirds finished. Maybe that was why I could almost feel him. I got out the little ball and chain, holding it in my hand and I looked at him.

"What is it Doc?" I queried.

"Part of a TARDIS memory circuit." He explained. "A bit like a DVD playing images that it has seen back. Must have gotten separated from one."

"You should have it." I told him. "Is there somewhere I can leave it for you?"

"Look after it for now." He gave that sad smile of his.

I promptly passed it over to Donna. "She's the one that worked it all out."

"She's good at that." He agreed.

I handed it over to Donna, and The Doctor looked at me pointedly. So, he knew did he? I automatically put my hand in my pocket, hiding the fact that there was a band of metal replacing a ring of the skin around my wrist.


	11. Snapshot

Snapshot

Snapshot

Another month gone by. Time for exams before summer if I was back at home. It was getting worse. I now had metal instead of skin from the middle of my palm to halfway up my arm, just on one hand, the right. It was just like those weird bodyguards, but I definitely wasn't a soldier as far as I could tell. I was covering it with light layers (a thin jacket over my tank top) and fingerless gloves, which Rose and everyone else took to be just a weird fashion statement I was trying. I had asked The Doctor to suggest ways to get it off, he hadn't thought of any. I was keeping quiet so I didn't worry anyone, but they all seemed to be especially protective of me, ever since that time in Majimji so it was proving tricky.

I was just pulling on my second glove when there was a knock at my door. I turned around and was greeted by Sarah-Jane with two mugs of tea. We had settled in to a nice little routine, the seven of us (counting K9), it was like a family holiday or something, and we even had rotas! Which made even worse the fact that I always feel like there's something they're not telling me. Of course, there are plenty of things I'm not telling them either.

"Good morning Daisy." greeted Sarah-Jane cheerfully.

"Hey Sarah-Jane. Sleep well?" she handed me a mug; I took it with my left hand, "Thanks."

"Not too bad." she replied.

"What's going on today?" I asked as she perched on the end of the desk where I was sitting.

"Jack and Rose are keeping an eye on the scans. Donna and Martha are thinking of likely places to look, K9 is helping." She suddenly beamed, "We're two thirds of the way done, isn't it great?"

I nodded, "Sure is." I paused and sipped my tea. "Sarah-Jane, can I tell you something?"

It only took about half an hour before Martha announced her presence, knocking on the door and letting herself in. I could read from her expression that they had found where to go. Sarah-Jane and I finished our tea and Martha dragged us out to the others, mugs and all. The usual muted excitement was buzzing around the console room.

The TARDIS for once landed neatly, although all of us were clinging on to the nearest bolted-down objects we could find, we didn't need to. This was most peculiar. I looked at Rose and she shrugged. We ventured outside, Sarah-Jane leading. We'd been on a moon, in a desert, under water, on different planets. What were we facing this time?

It wasn't quite what I expected. A snowflake landed on my cheek. We were in a narrow, crooked street, the sky was grey and it was snowing, night time. There was that hush that always came when it snowed, blocking everything out and making things sound distant and tinny. It must have been quite late. There were no prints disturbing the snow that lay on the ground, except the occasional bird or a cat.

I looked around at the shops, small and cramped together. The dress shop opposite us showed the latest in corsets and dresses, the dentist down the way had a display of what looked like torturer's instruments in the window. The lamps were gas powered. It was definitely sometime in the Victorian years and we stood out like MP4 players in an antiques shop.

"Um, quick change?" suggested Donna.

"Uh huh." More or less everyone agreed, and we made a swift dart back into the TARDIS.

Arranging period costumes for everyone proved tricky, but we managed it. Although mine was ridiculously uncomfortable, all ruffles and tight waists. I could barely breathe, but everyone else had the same problem, so it wasn't quite so bad. We piled out again. Just in time for a woman (I could only tell it was a woman from the fact she wore a dress) to speed passed us, not even seeing us as she ran from something. That something turned out to be some kind of panther that didn't seem to quite touch the floor as it chased her.

"What the hell is that?!" cried Martha.

She was answered by first Jack, then Sarah-Jane, then Donna, Rose and me running after them. Best we could in these ridiculous clothes anyway. We stopped outside a church, the woman was desperately trying to get in to it, but the doors were sealed shut. She screamed as the panther pounced, her back flattened against the wood. Then she saw us.

"Help me! Please help me!" she pleaded.

"Jack…" said Rose.

Jack was way ahead of her, out came his gun and within second there was a shot and a motionless panther lying on the floor. Jack held us all back whilst he went down to check it was definitely dead. He nodded and the panther suddenly just, dissolved. The woman sank down to a sitting position on the floor, crying. She focused on me for some reason, and fleeting relief crossed her face.

"Daisy! Oh thank heavens!" she croaked.

"I'm sorry, have we met?" I edged forwards.

"Daisy Morrison, is that you?" the woman sounded afraid again.

"No, I'm Daisy Tyler." I reached her and knelt down by her.

She shrank back, but peered up at me, inspecting my face. "You look just like her…but no, you are too young. Sorry."

I helped her up, steadying her elbow, "Are you alright? What was that?"

The woman shook her head, "I don't know. I've had things like that after me for a month!" her voice cracked and she started crying again.

The church doors suddenly opened and a priest was standing there, tall and quite slim, with grey hair and grey eyes. He saw the state of the woman and looked dismayed. She ran over to him and sobbed in to his chest.

"Uncle Cecil! Why didn't you open the doors?!" wailed the woman, "Those demons were chasing me again!"

The priest looked alarmed and held her close to him, regarding us with suspicion. "What have you been doing with my niece?"

"Whoa, whoa, easy." Jack held out his hands to prove his innocence, "We didn't do anything."

"These people saved me!" assured the woman.

"Oh, I see. Please excuse me. Thank you for protecting her. You should come to the vicarage, you'll catch you death of cold out here."

Soon we were all in a really big house, seated around an open fire, drinking tea. It was 2 o'clock in the morning! My body clock's gonna be very confused when I go home. The woman introduced herself as Violet. Her uncle chuckled at mine and Rose's names, called us the flower girls. Violet was a photographer, who was making quite a name for herself, a business woman in London, in the 19th Century? Just, it was 30th December, according to the calendar. Or did the time make it the 31st December.

"So, what happened a month ago?" asked Rose finally.

Violet shook her head, "Nothing out of the ordinary. I did two weddings and a Christening, then took some shots of the Winter Carnival. I swear."

"It's ok, we believe you." comforted Martha.

"Have you developed the photographs?" pressed Sarah-Jane.

"Yes, I have," Violet nodded.

"But why would you want to see them?" questioned Father Cecil.

"Maybe we can help." answered Donna simply.

Violet led us through the house up to the attic. It was cold and dark, until she turned on the lamps. Then it was just cold. She walked over to an antique (although in this time I think it was brand new) table and picked up a big album. She promptly passed it over to me. Ever now and then she was constantly inspecting me, like she thought I was that friend of hers, playing a trick on her.

I sat down on a rather dusty armchair with everyone standing behind me as I flicked through pages and pages of happy, smiling people. There was absolutely nothing I could see that would make aliens come after Violet. Then I stopped towards the end of the winter carnival section. I squinted and held the book closer to me. The picture was good quality, but there was something over the shoulder of the smiling man in the picture, standing on a street corner. Two something, and no way were they human. One looked like a snail on a body and the other looked like, well, I don't know. Humanoid, but with tusks or something coming out of a frog's head and they were shaking hands, well, hand like things.

"This isn't normal." I pointed it out.

Then I realised that the attic was very still and very quiet. I slowly looked up at the gun pointed directly at my head as the album was snatched away. Behind me Cecil, Violet, Martha, Donna, Rose, Jack and Sarah-Jane were all neatly rounded up by more snails. My captor motioned with his gun and I stood up, like a puppet on a string.

"Thank you kindly for gathering all the witnesses in one place." My captor said to Violet over my shoulder.

We were rather ungraciously marched down the stairs again and through the house, all the way back to the front door. Outside on the driveway was a big round platform. Jack smirked at his prison officer.

"You guys really don't go for discreet, do you?" He was shut up by a blow round the side of the head with the butt of a gun that caused him to sway.

"On. Now." It was the guy behind me.

I stared at the homeless snail and shivered. His skin, or whatever it was, was the same colour as a fried mushroom, things kind of rippled down his neck, his arms looked like muscles without the skin, because their were fine lines down them, and they ended in a kind of thumb, and two large fingers. He jabbed me in the back with his pistol. I looked frantically at Jack and Sarah-Jane, but neither of them could really manoeuvre themselves to get any weapons so we all walked forward.

A flash of blue light, teleport, left me feeling quite disorientated and by the wobbliness of my compatriots I think it did them too. My head was still spinning as I tried to focus on where we were.

I really wish I didn't. Because the floor was glass and I was looking down at Earth. Have I mentioned, I really hated heights? I felt quite ill so quickly looked back up and noticed we were in some kind of study, stuck in the middle with a ring of gunmen aimed at us. I felt Rose's hand searching for mine and grabbed it behind our backs, it made me feel a little better.

"Why have you brought us here?" demanded Sarah-Jane.

"What do you want?!" backed up Donna.

"Yes, what is the meaning of this? Can't you leave my niece alone?" protested Cecil.

"Of course not." Said the person, alien, behind the big oak desk as he stood up. "Can't have you upsetting things for us. First chance you get you'll go running off to the Meons!"

"The _what_?!" Martha sounded less than happy.

"Who _are_ you?" questioned Rose.

The lead slime ball actually looked amazed that we had no idea who he or these Meons were. It reminded me of a time when I was helping mum's friend in a café and some very dressed up (and orange, way to much fake tan) wandered in on a busy day and decided she would be served first and cut everyone off. I asked her politely to please wait her turn and I got that bane of a response, "Don't you _know_ who I _am?" _Sorry love, really didn't. Had some bit part in a soap or something.

"You're time travellers! How can you not know of the Meons and the Molscs?" How did he know we were time travellers?

"The who and the where?" I asked blankly. I was rewarded with a gun in my chest.

"Do not mock me!"

"She's telling the truth!" argued Jack, "We don't have a clue.

He finally seemed to believe us. Then gave a nasty laugh. "Oh. Well, I suppose I can fill you in. You might as well know why you're dying."

"Thank you, that's very considerate." scoffed Sarah-Jane.

He went rambling on about a glorious war (Glorious? War? Was he for real?) between the Meons and the Molscs. It sounded all very not out of the ordinary. I'd been told about lots of wars between races before. Sontarans and Rutons, Cybermen and everyone, Time Lords and Daleks of course. It only got interesting when he mentioned the Time Lords. They had kept them in check until all of a sudden, they lost their grip, like the one thing that gave them power had disappeared. We all stared at each other. The one thing that gave them power. There was only one thing that we knew was missing.

"But now that damn academy!" growled the head Molsc. What kind of name was that anyway? "They're forcing us to have peace talks! How dare those primitive brats try and tell _us_ what to do?!" he punched the desk and his hand just sort of, squished. Nasty. "So we made a deal with the Meons. They put down their weapons, we would put down ours." He smirked. "Idiots."

"I'm guessing the other one in the photograph isn't a Meon." said Violet solemnly.

"Clever girl. That's the leader of the Mians." Was I the only one confused by these names? "We convince the Meons to disarm, then the Mians can sweep in and we'll split them right down the middle."

"You're double crossing them. That's immoral!" Cecil was flushed with anger.

"In laymen's terms. Yes. We can't afford this leaked. So we must dispose of the evidence. Kill them."

Guns cocked, and there was a huge explosion. It blew the doors open and engulfed every single Molsc in flames. I screamed and looked around for an exit, but there was nothing around us apart from a ring of fire and it was closing in. I clung to Rose, Violet and Martha for dear life. We had been cut off from Donna, Jack and Cecil by a strip of flames in the middle of us. Then I felt that woozy feeling again, the teleport was being activated. We were engulfed in blue light and we were suddenly back in Cecil's drive way. There were many hugs and smiles and exchanges that generally amounted to, 'are you ok?' A few feet in front of us was a single teleport beam and of all people, Alex appeared.

"_Alex_?!" I exclaimed. "How did you…?"

"Find you?" Alex winked. "You're pretty hard to lose Daisy Hope Tyler." He tossed Violet over her photo album. "You can have these back. We have all the evidence we need. Take care. Bye now."

Before I could say anything else, Alex had teleported away again. What was it with that boy?! Piling back inside we had to explain ourselves to Violet and Cecil. It took a lot of convincing that we weren't demons (no, we're not angels either) but eventually they calmed down. I jumped a mile, so did everyone else, as there was a flash and a bang. We ran over to the French windows as there was another flash and bang. Fireworks?!

Cecil rummaged around for the key and Jack wrenched open the old door. We all walked out on to a rather cracked patio as more fireworks lit up the sky. I looked around and saw everyone's eyes sparkling, lit up by the colours. Cecil squinted at his pocket watch. Evidently time had passed a lot quicker when we were on the ship.

"Well, I never." He gasped. "I suppose I should better say, Happy New Century."

Violet, who had been quiet for a while, spoke up, "I'll be right back!"

I jumped again at a particularly loud bang and Rose laughed at me and hugged me, I held on to her and Martha, and we all stood there entwined, Jack was at Rose's other side with an arm around her shoulders, Donna was next to him with a hand round his waist, and Sarah-Jane had linked arms the other side of Martha. It was the happiest I've ever been since I met everyone. The happiest I would be for a while…

Moments later Violet called out to us, and we all turned around. The flash went just as a firework exploded over our heads. I daresay Alex had a hand in sped up development, because when we got back to the TARDIS, an envelope was waiting for me. It contained the picture, and as soon as I unveiled it, a violet stone appeared on my necklace, which made me smile. I had seven now. All the colours of the rainbow.

I love that photo. We were all holding on to each other laughing. We were in funny clothes, it was black and white and it was hardly digital quality, but I never let that photo far away from me.

The only problem with snapshots is just that. They're snap, one offs, capturing a moment in time forever. But it's only a fragment of the big picture.


	12. Bad Turn

"The only thing that ever linked us, Rose, is _genetics_. Even that's messed up now." growled Daisy.

* * *

It had started off a fairly good day. We were all in high spirits because we were nearly there. Just two more stones to find and we'd have The Doctor back. We were sitting around a pack of cards, talking and laughing. I was doing appallingly as per usual. Even K9 was beating me. Daisy was the whiz kid. She tried so many times to help me win, but Poker was not my forte. I was already down a necklace, two pairs of earrings and a scarf. This hand just lost me a bracelet.

"Remind me to give you a few lessons when we get home." Daisy said to me with a grin.

God, if only. My losing streak was interrupted by a high pitched beep sounding from the control room. That was our cue. Just then I was relieved to hear it. Save me what little dignity I had left! Sarah-Jane and Jack peered at the screen and Martha leaned on my shoulder to look too. I loved this little family. I had three sisters, a brother, a wise aunt and even a dog. Of course I missed my blood relatives back home. But I still had Daisy and we were catching up on a lot. I'd missed out on seeing her grow up, missed the development of a quite frankly, fantastic human being.

"Where to next then Cap'n Jack?" grinned Daisy.

"No idea. Let's find out." Jack shrugged.

So we did just that. Set the co-ordinates and off we went. It was a fairly rough ride, but then it always was, except that once a fortnight or so ago. I grabbed Daisy's arm and it felt rather hard…but still warm. Maybe she had just been working out. Then a sudden thought struck me and my blood went cold. Oh, surely not?

I didn't have time to dwell. We landed and everyone was eager to get out. Before now we would always be cautious and hesitant, but because we were so close everyone was fuelled by adrenalin.

I knew where we were in an instant. No denying that we were in a school. The TARDIS was parked in a courtyard, startling some tennis players. It seemed like we were outside, but that was only because way up the roof was made of glass. There were at least six floors all looking down on us from the walkway. There were lifts one side with stairs next to them, it was bustling and clean. To the left was what seemed to be reception; to the right was a canteen.

"Wow. Now if I had gone here, I wouldn't have skipped class so much." decided Donna.

"I wonder if I can get Luke in to this place..." pondered Sarah-Jane. "I think he'd like it."

"It's much less cramped than UNIT." admitted Martha.

"And it's not underground." added Jack. "Which makes a nice change."

"All true. But the big question is why are we here?"

We had gathered quite a crowd by now, of all ages, and they looked excited and lively. Even teachers who had started off by telling them not to block the corridors stopped and stared as they caught sight of us and the TARDIS. One small girl ran forward.

"It's them! They're here!" she flung herself into a startled Daisy's arms. "You're Daisy, you're my favourite!"

"I…am? Uh, thanks?" puzzled my little sister.

"You know us then?" asked Martha with a smile.

"Yep. Don't worry, you're amongst friends here." ensured an older boy.

"Excuse me, Jack?! Will you sign my book?!" asked a shy teenage girl.

"Dr Martha, can you write on my cast?!" pleaded a boy.

"Rose, I made something for you." A woman handed me a plush doll, of myself.

"Sarah-Jane! Can you teach me how to be a writer?" an eager little boy asked.

Whoa. What was going on here? We were suddenly swarmed by questions and people, adults and children and everything in between, including different species. Autograph books and gifts were being waved in our face and Daisy found herself plaiting a dozen girls' hair in her own style. It made me grin, definitely a change from death and destruction and running from aliens.

"OK people, break it off, that's enough!" boomed a male voice.

Everyone fell back and to attention as a huge mountain of a man, well over six foot and broad-shouldered in a suit and tie made his way over to us. He introduced himself as the Headmaster of Canis Major Academy, Blake Downey. Behind him appeared a familiar face.

"Alex, you again?!" sighed Daisy, but I knew she was secretly pleased.

"Hal and Grace too?" exclaimed Donna as a blonde with blue streaks and a long-haired boy appeared as well. They must have been the people her and Daisy had met on that moon.

"Pleased to see you too." Alex grinned and stuck his tongue out at my sister.

The girl, Grace, shrugged, "This beats hiding out in holes. The music was getting on my nerves."

"Please, come with me, we'll get you some refreshment." said Blake politely.

We detached ourselves from our 'fans'. Apparently our escapades were taught in classes to give examples of how things should be. We had sort of become a cult icon, which was surreal. Blake led us around the tennis courts and to an office in the furthest top right corner, fronted by glass double doors that had his name embossed on them. Alex, Grace and Hal fell in behind us, automatically surrounding Daisy as she talked animatedly to them; she had a habit of drawing people to her.

We walked in to the office; it was basic, pale pine furniture, white walls, with the odd painting or photograph spattered around. There was a huge blue sofa along one wall, and he motioned for us to sit. Donna, Martha, Sarah-Jane and I did, Jack, Daisy and the three students remained standing, just leaning on the back. Blake asked his secretary to bring us some tea. As soon as she had disappeared, he turned his attention to us.

"So, why are we here exactly?" queried Donna.

That got some nervous looks exchanged between Blake, Alex, Grace and Hal. They were clearly reluctant to answer, and that worried me no end. Especially when Alex looked at Daisy. She caught his eye, and he swiftly turned away. The alarm bells were ringing now. Blake seemed almost apologetic, taking a long time to think over how he was about to phrase this. He looked around at everyone. Everyone apart from Daisy. I had a feeling I knew what was going on. Blake stopped momentarily as his secretary brought in mugs of tea for us. She placed them on a coffee table that she pulled over before departing again.

"I believe you're familiar with a certain…King Periculum?" he sighed eventually.

"The tin man? Yes, we know of him." answered Jack cautiously.

"He's got this whole academy surrounded by missiles that will launch in less than a second." cut in Grace, completely dead pan.

"_What?!_" cried everyone, including myself.

"There's ten thousand people in this academy. Plus all of you." I saw Blake waver as he told us.

"And if we get blown out of the sky, the shockwave will wipe out two thirds of the people on the planet below." put in Alex urgently. "That's over four billion people."

"But…how? Aren't you supposed to be the intergalactic police?" cried Donna.

"In training!" protested Alex, "This is an _academy_?"

"How did you not see this coming and stop it?!" Martha too was aghast.

"We tried. Honest to god." Blake's tone was dark, subdued. "We lost thousands of good officers, because that army of theirs, it's just too strong."

I could see in his eyes that he blamed himself for every single life that had been lost. It was the same look I'd seen in The Doctor's eyes before. I couldn't help thinking though; just what did this have to do with us? There was something that he wasn't telling us. Was there some kind of deal they had offered them? A trade? It hardly bore thinking about. Sarah-Jane cut straight to the chase. She did have a habit of doing that to us.

"What'll make them stop?" she questioned simply.

"They want…" Alex started, but his voice failed and he looked down. Hal and Grace looked everywhere but at another person.

"They want…you." Blake was looking at the desk. I wondered just why King Periculum would want us. "They'll only have dealings with you." We always got in to this kind of mess, but he hadn't finished. "…Daisy."

No. Oh god, no! The cup I was holding fell out of my hands and shattered on the floor. Lucky I was already sitting down else I would have fallen. I think Daisy noticed my falter because she immediately steadied me and squeezed my shoulder. Everyone in the room was shocked in to silence. All eyes were on her, and she didn't look even slightly worried. She looked, resigned. Accepting. Like she always knew that something like this would happen. She must have worked it out. Clever, clever girl. It had to be meticulously explained to the rest of us. But Daisy was sharp.

"What are their terms?" her voice was low.

I admired her. She wasn't panicking or angry, didn't cry out 'why me' or how do I get out of this. Just asked them casually, like she was used to basically selling herself. I stood up sharply and she stepped back, startled.

"No way. Not my sister!" I protested, furious on her behalf.

"Rose. Sit down. I'll handle this." commanded Daisy. She was all business and I was stunned in to sitting down. Daisy squeezed my shoulder again and looked at Blake. "What are their terms?" she repeated.

"You can't seriously be considering…" Alex was shut up by a sharp look from my sister.

Martha patted my arm and Donna leaned forward on the sofa, squeezing my hand, sympathy shining in their eyes. There was a flicker in the middle of the room, and out of nowhere, Periculum appeared. Complete with the guard that Daisy told me she nicknamed Chief. Alex, Grace and Hal promptly withdrew weapons from their pockets (they were so small I hadn't noticed them before) and Blake stood up defensively. Daisy let go of me and placed herself between the king and us.

"Miss Tyler and friends. How lovely to see you again." Periculum greeted with a mock bow.

His voice was so reasonable it infuriated me and it took both Donna and Martha holding me down to stop me from punching him. I saw Jack was having the same problem and Sarah-Jane was keeping him in check. The only one not twitching angrily was Daisy.

"Make me a deal Periculum." spat Daisy.

Chief was about to smack her with his gun for disrespecting the King again, but Daisy was quicker; she cut him off with her arm, and didn't even flinch when it connected. In fact, it sounded rather metallic.

"Now now Chief." tutted Periculum. "You should know better than to cross Miss Tyler."

"I'm waiting." Daisy folded her arms.

"So, it looks like you worked out what was going on then." Daisy didn't answer. "I had to break it down in to the very basics to your friends over there." He nodded at us. For the first time Daisy seemed surprised, and slowly turned to us. "Oh yes. They know too. Told them everything when you were having a nap after that little confrontation of yours in Jared's kingdom." He looked at us, pretending to be astounded, "They knew that the machine didn't explode because of that weird little defence mechanism of yours. It was because you, my dear, were already infected with the genes. When you were bitten. Right at the start of this little adventure."

So, Daisy had been hiding from us, blocking out her own fears, never daring to tell us what she already knew. She suffered in complete silence…turning into the thing that had tried to kill us…

"You mean you didn't _tell_ her?!" Periculum grinned wickedly. "And you call yourself her friends. Oh how much more comfortable her time would have been if you had just been honest. You gave her no support at all! How selfish of the lot of you. Too worried about your precious Doctor to care for the people right in front of you."

"Cut the crap Periculum. Give me a straight answer." demanded Daisy.

"Oh, it's really not as bad as you think." Periculum said idly. "Just agree to come back with me. Be my queen, my Black Mariah, and your friends, this academy and that little planet you're so attached to will be left in one piece."

"What's the catch?!" challenged Daisy.

"None…apart from the obvious of course." Daisy's face hardened. She knew what that catch was then.

Daisy barely took any time to think. What she did surprised me. She whipped off her necklace and walked over, pressing it in to my hand. There was no expression, no emotion shown. The gesture implied everything. We were supposed to carry on looking for The Doctor. Did she really think it would be that easy for us to just leave her behind? Commit her to an arranged marriage and fly away. She was treating it just like some kind of business deal. No nonsense, no nothing.

"You'll disarm the missiles. Then I'll come with you." stated Daisy, monotone.

"Oh, you're making this so easy. It's not as much fun." complained Periculum.

"Take it or leave it." shot Daisy.

I couldn't believe what was happening. Even after what I had heard in Majimji. When the machine exploded, it had knocked Daisy cold. Long enough for Periculum to put in an appearance. All of us had thought it was those weird mental abilities unleashed that had corrupted the program. But it wasn't. It was the program itself. Daisy had already been infected, so it cancelled itself out. Infection is what it was, the metal _was_ skin. Biomechanics or something. Organic matter fusing with synthetic nanobots. It spread like cancer throughout the body, warping cells until the whole body became corrupt. Like a jumped up Cyberman.

The only reason it was progressing slowly in Daisy was because her DNA was _already_ corrupt, so the program had trouble reading it. The combination of two different universes residing in her body, along with her trip through the void had completely confused all logic and reason. I looked at my poor sister. She knew this was happening. But she didn't cry or scream or selfishly demand to be taken home, didn't worry about finding a cure. She just grinned and bore it, whilst we carelessly dragged her along on the quest that had nothing to do with her. Now look where it had got her.

"Well, maybe you people can make this more interesting." Periculum meant us. He whipped a tiny vial out of his pocket. "See this here?" he smiled, holding it up. "This is a vaccination. Clear that little problem of yours right up." he said to Daisy.

"Leave them alone Periculum." snapped Daisy.

"What are you proposing." ventured Jack.

"I'll give you a chance. You can have the missiles, this and your little flower too…" he paused for what I think he assumed was dramatic effect. "…if you win them from me."

"What are the conditions?" Martha stood up.

"Martha, _don't._" warned Daisy.

"We play a little card game. You should know it by now." He nodded at Daisy, "She's the personification of it."

"What happens if we lose?" Donna edged forward.

"Simple. You _all_ come back with me and be my servants." Periculum gave that nasty grin.

"Rose, don't even think…!"

I was not going to let Daisy take the fall for this. I stood up with my friends. "We'll do it."

"Are we all agreed?" smirked Periculum.

"On one condition." voiced Daisy. "I play separately from them. If I lose, the arrangement stays as is. I come with you, you leave them be."

"Very noble of you. Agreed."

We were ready. Even Blake, Alex, Grace and Hal. Ten of us against one of him. The odds were in our favour. We could get my sister out of this. We'd got her into it, it was only fair. We sat around Blake's desk and Periculum deftly dealt us all a hand. I couldn't believe it. We were playing around with a deck of cards and our lives depended on it. Everything had gotten so messed up. We were so close, to each other and to getting The Doctor back. Now _everything_ was at stake. All I'd ever known and loved.

"Ready?"

We all picked up our hands. He had to use two packs because there were so many of us. Now every move we made could mean elation or devastation. Just pick a card, any card, from your neighbour's hand. I took off Sarah-Jane. A pair of sevens, I was two cards down. I hoped it was a lucky seven.

It was an easy game to get the hang of. The cards were all dealt out, save the Queen of Clubs, which Chief hung on to. We went around taking cards off the people next to us desperately hoping for the same colour and number, so we could match and put our cards down.

I've never felt so much tension in all my life and it was all over a stupid kid's game. I was terrified as one by one people were home free, cards were put down. In no time there were just four players left. Periculum, Alex, Daisy and me. Alex went out with two kings. I had just one card left when I picked off Periculum. I got the Queen of Spades and my heart and stomach iced over. Periculum gave a slow smile as he took off Daisy. He paused for a moment, and then laughed as he put down his last cards. Oh my god. It was all over. Daisy had to pick off me. Just two to choose from. She didn't hesitate even slightly, and she got that damned card.

My sister's fate was literally in my hands. She could have company in her prison, we would all be together, but The Doctor would be lost…or I could sentence her to isolation. I closed my eyes and gave one of the cards a tug. I felt sick. Queen of Hearts. It matched my Queen of Diamonds. I had just condemned my baby sister to a lifetime imprisonment and dehumanisation.

"All is fair in love and games." shrugged Periculum.

I was numb. I couldn't move. I had effectively killed Daisy. I barely noticed the pitying arms around my shoulder as Daisy slowly got up from the table and went to stand by her new…husband. She didn't say a single word, and I could tell absolutely nothing from looking at her face. I desperately lunged in her general direction.

"Daisy!" my shout was strange, strangled. Chief cut me off and Sarah-Jane pulled me back.

Periculum threw Blake some kind of control. The man caught it easily and stared at it, confused.

"It'll disarm the missiles." Periculum yawned. He turned to Daisy and smiled at her with what I think was genuine tenderness. "Shall we go?"

"Daisy! Daisy, you can't!" I pleaded. "What about everything we've been through! You can't be just willing to give all that up."

"Who said anything about willing?" Daisy's voice terrified me. It was cold, clipped. I had never ever heard her speak in that tone before. "One life for over four billion. Your precious Doctor would do the same." Now her voice was pure venom and it struck me to my very core.

"Daisy, we'll save you! I promise!" I sobbed.

"Come off it Rose." she scoffed. "We both know you'll go off and find your Time Lord. I was never anything but a way in."

"How can you say that?! You know it's not true!"

"I did without you for twelve years. I think if you really believed that you would at least have tried to see me."

Then she did something else I didn't expect. She slowly peeled off her gloves. Then her jacket. Then her shirt…until she was wearing just a midriff bearing tank top. I can't believe it, but I actually winced, cowered away from my sister and back in to the waiting arms of Donna and Jack. Daisy's hands were solid metal. Her arms, all the way up to her shoulders. Her torso too shone brightly like polished silver. The virus was consuming her.

"The only think that ever linked us, Rose, is _genetics_. Even that's messed up now." growled Daisy.

Periculum slung an arm around her shoulders and even Chief seemed to smile at his new mistress. Then in a blaze of light she was gone. My legs went out from under me and I sank to my knees, tears streaming down my face. Sarah-Jane knelt in front of me and wrapped her arms around me. I clung to her like I would my mother. Donna and Martha were right at hand, rubbing my back and holding my hands.

Periculum had left behind his cards. I barely noticed as Alex bent down and picked them up. He flicked through them, glowering at every single turn. But gradually, as he moved through them, his eyes lost the anger and widened in shock.

"Oh. My. God." breathed Alex.

"What is it Alex?" asked Jack, walking over.

"Look. The cards." He handed them over. Jack inspected them, and his eyes came to the same conclusion as they met the boy's. "He rigged them! See, there's a mark on the Queen. He knew exactly where it was all the time. We could never have won!"

That got my attention. I sniffed and looked up, helped to my feet by Sarah-Jane. Jack passed me over the card. In the top left corner was the tiniest of dots. Easy to miss, but no other card had it. We'd been duped.

"There's no way you could have seen that. Unless you knew what you were looking for." Donna concluded.

"Or paid close attention." agreed Martha.

"Daisy knew." I realised, "She was next to him, she worked it out…" I felt queasy all over again.

"And she took the fall for us." Sarah-Jane covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh, poor girl…"

"She just saved our butts." said Grace bluntly.

"She's right." Donna whispered. "It's exactly what The Doctor would do."

"Don't you worry Rose." rounded up Jack confidently, "We'll get your sister back."

But I couldn't help thinking, what if she didn't want to come?


	13. Action Stations

Hi everyone, Loki here. Thank you all for reading! I was stunned at my number of hits, favourites and reviews. They mean a lot to me, all of them. But wow, CC is nearly finished! Sorry about the delay between this one and last. Computer problems. To save confusion, here's a quick list of who's speaking where. It's fairly obvious really, but maybe it'll help!

1. Rose  
2. Martha  
3. Sarah-Jane  
4. Martha  
5. Jack  
6. Martha (briefly)  
7. Donna

I've indicated changes. Enjoy! Please keep reading and reviewing. I love to hear what you think.

* * *

Action Stations 

Everyone went in to action stations as Daisy left. I watched them all in a daze, but Donna was right by my side the whole time. It was strange to have her looking after me of all of them, but it felt comfortable. Blake immediately put in a call to some of the qualified police. Alex, Grace and Hal went around the school telling everybody what had happened, making sure they all knew various talents could be called on at any point.

Jack and Sarah-Jane, along with K9 were writing out some kind of plans to make their weapons compatible and much more powerful. It made me shiver, thinking of Sarah-Jane, the woman who had 'adopted' three children, was pushing sixty (all though, she did look very good on it) and had started out as a journalist was now mapping out something so destructive.

With Jack, I expected it. Ever since he'd joined his branch of Torchwood, it had opened up a much stronger, darker side of him. He couldn't die, so he threw himself in to danger at every opportunity. Or that's what it seemed like anyway. Martha had gone along similar lines. She'd told me she now worked at UNIT, and she was off on her phone discussing tactics with them, talking explosions and damage control as easily as the weather.

Donna was the most normal one and I was grateful for it. I worked at Torchwood too, but losing my sister had kind of shut me down. She was never far from me if I needed anything and kept me talking about what Daisy and I would do when she came back and how fantastic it would be to see The Doctor again. She was talking about it like it was a sure thing and I admired that.

Blake came in to the canteen where we had moved to and looked at us. "We're getting together a lot of strong people, Torchwood and UNIT are giving us tactical advice and the students are on alert for anything suspicious. We have a lot of muscle power if we need it."

"What do you mean_ if_?" I cried, "My sister's up god knows where surrounded my metal soldiers, slowly turning in to one of them!"

"We're hoping perhaps you can get through to her." replied Blake simply. "Try and detach her from the others so we can bring her here and work on an antidote."

"Were you not paying attention before she left? She hates me!"

"Stop right there Rose." said Donna sharply. "She could never, ever hate you. She was just angry and upset; we all say stupid things when we're like that."

"But…!"

"You don't give your sister enough credit." concluded Donna. "If she had hated you, she wouldn't have done what she did and saved all our hides."

She was right. Maybe she hated me, but she didn't hate Sarah-Jane, or Jack or Donna or Martha. Speak of the devil, they came in just then. Donna had managed to shut me up. Martha came over and hugged me, sitting down beside me, Donna shifted over so I could too and there was room for her.

"UNIT are prepared to help us if we need it." She reassured gently.

"My guys are networking to try and find about weak spots." added Jack with a charming smile.

"Jack's pumped up my sonic device and added more settings." added Sarah-Jane.

"Our troops are at the ready." continued Blake.

Alex, Grace and Hal came in, "And we have a bunch of people who are willing to kick a little butt and come with us."

I couldn't believe it. They had done all this for me, for my sister, no questions asked. I welled up again. "Thank you. Just, thank you." I whispered.

"Come on." decided Donna decisively, "You need tea."

She linked arms and pulled me up towards the door, the others were following us and I noticed Donna and Martha exchanging a look as I was led away, but I didn't think much of it.

* * *

I nodded to Donna as she took Rose away. She really needed a break. It left me with Jack and Sarah-Jane, quite an odd combination but it made sense. I had a feeling we had a few things to discuss. Blake saw that we wanted to talk and politely excused himself. Hal and Grace followed, but Alex hung behind. Looked like he had a word or two to share as well.

"Well. This is a turn of events." sighed Sarah-Jane as she flopped down on the couch, absent-mindedly twirling her sonic lipstick. "I still can't believe it happened."

"I was really hoping the machine would malfunction or something." agreed Jack. "Daisy's a sweet kid. She doesn't deserve this."

"But she certainly made plans, didn't she? That thing with Rose broke my heart." I sat by Sarah-Jane. "But she did the right thing, trying to distance them."

"So, what exactly did she say to you?" Jack turned to Sarah-Jane.

* * *

_**Sarah-Jane**_

"_Sarah-Jane, can I tell you something?" Daisy gave me the strangest look, sad and haunted._

"_Of course Daisy, what's wrong?" I asked, suddenly worried about her._

_She paused for a long moment, thinking over what she was trying to say. I had some suspicion what it could be regarding. Whilst the poor lass had been unconscious in Majimji, that horrible little Periculum man appeared to us. _

"_Don't worry." He had cackled, "Your precious little flower's not going anywhere. Yet."_

"_What do you mean yet?" demanded Rose, immediately defensive._

"_The machine didn't work because her genes have already been altered." He smirked_

"_Already altered?" Martha repeated._

"_Spreads like an infection. She got bit, now she's slowly turning in to one of us." He seemed giddy with happiness._

"_We're gonna need more than that." Donna was all hands on hips._

"_Make the most of your time with her. Because soon she'll be mine."_

_I was snapped out of my reverie by a concerned look from Daisy who had leaned forward slightly. She was looking up to meet my eye and she seemed half terrified and half defiant. Words couldn't express what she was trying to explain, so she slowly peeled off those gloves of hers and her jacket. I couldn't help it; my hands flew to my mouth. From somewhere in the middle of her palm to just passed her wrist, Daisy's skin was metal. Just like those soldiers that had side-tracked us in the desert._

"_Not quite the look I was going for." She confessed with a wry grin, but I could see she was worried. "I know what's happening to me Sarah-Jane. I'm becoming a monster. There's nothing I can do about it. But you can."_

"_What do you mean I can?" I really didn't see what she meant. Of all of us I was least likely to be able to help. The rest were younger and fitter than me._

"_When I change, I won't be myself. I want you to forget the Daisy Tyler you know. I need you to see me as I will be, not what I was." I swear she had just gained a few decades of wisdom in her voice._

"_What are you saying?" How could I possibly forget Daisy? Or any of them? After all we'd been through._

"_You have to see an alien threat. You know how to deal with those." She looked long and hard at me, before her eyes passed over her wrists. _

"_You don't know what'll happen! It might be something completely different!" I protested._

"_Promise me, you'll forget Daisy Tyler when you need to." She didn't look up._

"_I…can't. But, I'll try and help you." I replied to her honestly._

"_And don't tell Rose." She finished._

_It was then that Martha came in and our conversation was terminated. We never brought it up again._

* * *

"She told me to forget her." Sarah-Jane answered. "Forget what she was and focus on what she would be."

"Easier said than done." It was Alex speaking up this time. He was staring out of the window, totally lost.

"Why are you still here Alex?" I wondered aloud.

"Daisy asked me to be." He admitted, staring intently at the shoes. "When we first came in to the office, we were talking?" I nodded, I remembered that. "She told me to protect you. Me, Grace and Hal."

"But you're just kids!" I exclaimed, ashamed of my own bias. They were kids, but they were very advanced kids. Daisy was a kid too.

"She didn't see us like that." argued Hal. "She told us that we could be strong. We trust her." He looked at me, "What did she say to you then Martha?" he challenged.

_**Martha**_

_I had liked Violet. She was a sweet girl and I hoped she did well for herself. It was tough being a woman in those times, especially a businesswoman. I could sympathise with it completely. It was pretty late and most people were in their rooms. I was just finishing clearing up; it was my turn on the rota. When I came across young Daisy sitting with the TARDIS doors open, staring out at space, occasionally glancing down at something._

"_Hey Daze." I grinned wandering over. She looked up with a start and offered me a small smile, "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you."_

"_I don't think much can surprise me nowadays." She admitted. _

"_Mind if I join you?"_

"_Pull up a floor tile." She grinned that cheeky, lively grin of hers and hitched up. "Jack really hasn't got a hang of the vacuum cleaner has he?"_

"_What brings you out here? Can't sleep?"_

"_Nope. My brain refuses to shut up."_

"_I get that sometimes." I sympathised. I noticed she looked down again, "What've you got there? Can I see?"_

_She hesitated, thinking about it for a while. I could see her debate the pros and cons and finally decide it wouldn't hurt to let me peek. She held up a small square piece of paper and passed it over to me. My mouth dropped open, it was all of us watching the fireworks and we looked ridiculous. Ridiculous, but happy._

"_Violet posted me it." She explained._

"_Fast work."_

"_I daresay Alex had a hand in it." She paused. "Hey, Martha?"_

"_Yes?"_

"_You work for UNIT, right?" I nodded, that was true. "Have you guys done a lot of work on the rift? The thing Rose and I fell through?"_

_Now I was cautious. I had to be very, very careful with what I could say to her. I trusted her with my life, but I wasn't sure an association like UNIT would see it quite that way if I accidentally let something slip that I shouldn't._

"_Some." I shrugged._

"_Do you think there's any way of contacting it?" What a weird question._

"_Possibly, though that's not really my department." That much was true. "Why?"_

"_Because…" she paused again, "If something should happen to me. Would you be able to let my family know?"_

"_I honestly don't know. What do you think is going to happen to you?" I smiled, trying to lighten the mood, "We'll look after you. We look after each other."_

"_Thanks. But there's only so much you can do." She sighed, a sigh full of, something. Exhaustion, resignation, exasperation, I wasn't sure._

"_What's wrong Daisy?"_

_She rolled up her sleeves and I couldn't believe it. The tips of her fingers to just below her shoulders were completely metallic. Then she slipped up the leg of her jeans, the rings around her ankles were metal too._

"_Oh, my god. Why didn't you tell us about this?"_

"_Because I figured you'd freak."_

"_You should have let me know!" I scolded, "I'm a doctor, and this is my job!"_

"_There's nothing you can do Martha." She told me simply, "You can't stop it. But please, if you can, try and contact my family. When the time comes. Will you do that for me?"_

"_Of course I will. But that's not going to happen. I'll run tests, call in experts…" she cut me off with a hand on my arm._

"_Don't tell Rose."_

I didn't. Still hadn't. The only people that knew now were Sarah-Jane, Jack and Alex. I told them she wanted me to try and contact Jackie and Pete and reassure them. I don't know how I would do that, but I had asked UNIT to look in to it. I'd promised. Jack was suddenly very quiet. He looked almost angry, angry at what I'm not sure, but something.

"Jack?" ventured Sarah-Jane.

"Damn. I really got the short straw." He sounded really bitter. "I'd much rather have jobs like you two have than what she assigned me!"

"What was that?" asked Alex.

* * *

_**Jack**_

_We had some kind of understanding between us. The others didn't know what I'd told Daisy. They knew about the two people I lost, but not about my family troubles. I found myself telling her everything I would normally have told The Doctor. She never told me anything, except once. Never judged either, just listened, except once._

_It was a couple of days after we'd visited Violet, the photographer. Everyone was taking some time out, when there was a knock on my door, very quiet._

"_Hello?"_

"_Jack?" It was Daisy. "Can I come in?"_

_I wondered why, "Sure."_

_I walked over and opened the door. Daisy glanced at me then looked at the floor; she kept hugging her arms like she was nervous or worried about something. She suddenly looked very young. Well, compared to all of us, she was very young. Never seemed it until then though. She closed the door behind her._

"_Everything ok?" I asked._

_She didn't answer me for a few seconds. When she did it surprised me. "No. No, everything's not ok."_

_She knocked me completely off my stride as she started crying. I had never once seen her cry. It was that creepy crying, completely silent and totally devastating. I offered her a seat and she shook her head, claiming if she sat down she probably wouldn't get up again._

"_What's going on kid?" _

"_Your job. What do you do exactly?"_

_That was a weird question. "You know what we do. We keep tabs on alien activity, largely based around the rift."_

"_What do you do when you find a threat?"_

_Where was she going with this? "We deal with it appropriately."_

"_Are you brave Jack?" another strange question. "Will you do what's best for people, no matter what?"_

"_What are you getting at Daisy, give me a straight answer."_

"_I need to know yours before I do. Would you always protect Martha, Rose, Donna, and Sarah-Jane?"_

"_Of course I would!"_

"_Good."_

"_Daisy, stop being cryptic."_

_She sure did. Dropped her jacket to the ground, just wearing a tank top. Too bad she was Rose's little sister…but I couldn't think of that. Especially not now. She was part metal, her arms and a ring around her torso. I realise what she wanted me to do then. I wanted to go back on my word, but I couldn't. She had done a lot more for me than she realised._

"_Deal with it appropriately. When you need to. Don't tell Rose." _

_She picked up her jacket and left, leaving me shell shocked._

* * *

Sarah-Jane, Jack, Alex and I were completely silent. We were rounding up the troops, to destroy Rose's little sister. Not just Rose's. She was like a little sister to all of us, always had been. Yet she had commanded it. Blake came back to tell us we were ready to move out and my mind and heart went numb. I put in a quick call to UNIT. Then walked out.

* * *

Bloody fantastic. I somehow had to keep the spirits up of a girl who was absolutely devastated whilst everyone around us was planning the demise of a teenage girl that she had ordered herself. It made me feel sick. I would have cried, but Rose had been doing enough of that for us both lately. Up until about half an hour again. It was like some kind of transformation. She was suddenly harder, colder, like she had used up all of her emotion. I did notice she kept running her hand over the seven stones around her neck. We only had two more to find. That was something, despite everything. We would get Daisy back and then get The Doctor back.

"Feeling better Rose?"

Rose shook her head; even her voice was more mechanical. "Not even close. But I'm useless as a blubbering wreck."

I honestly couldn't blame her reaction. If it was any of my relative I'd be a complete mess. But I had a job to do; Daisy had assigned it to me. Just after that dreadful card game, she had pushed a piece of paper in to my hand without anyone seeing it. I didn't look at it until she had gone and it made me skin crawl.

_Donna,_

_I have to break ties with Rose, for her own good. Please look after her._

_Tell the others how sorry I am, and let them know how grateful I was to get my sister back and a whole new family as well. I've seen this coming for a long time and I'm not scared. No, that's a lie, I'm terrified, but rather me than all of you. _

_Find the Doctor, get him back, and then forget me. Don't ever think about me again, you've all got a lot more to worry about than some random kid who hitched a ride to a parallel universe. Saving the world for instance, the whole of time and space to explore. _

_Even Rose should forget about me in time. I love her, always have and always will. But I don't know her. We're like complete strangers, we went our own way for twelve years, it's not like we have a lot to miss… _

I couldn't bear to recall the last part. Just thinking about it, I could feel my eyes watering. I had to pull myself together though, because the other came in to the cafeteria and stood around our table.

"We've got to go." said Blake solemnly, "Everyone's ready."

I squeezed the letter, which was in my pocket and stood up, nodding me understanding. What a funny old world it was. But there was a young girl we had to save. If we could.

_Visit a star for me and take care._

_Much love and thanks to all of you._

_Daisy xx_


	14. Untouchable

Untouchable

We all gathered in the courtyard. There were dozens of us, all ages and species. Blake had worked it out so we would all be deployed in different areas so we could surround them. A lot of the students who had greeted us before were watching us anxiously from the walkways. Including the little girl who claimed Daisy was her favourite. She was crying her eyes out being comforted by one of the boys who had come forward. We were about ready to take off, when Martha's phone started ringing. She looked surprised, almost hesitant as she answered. Then she did something nobody was expecting, she held her phone out to me.

"Rose. It's for you." She explained simply.

Who the hell was calling me? Everyone I knew was here and it was really not the best time. I have to admit, I snatched the phone out of Martha's hand, she seemed a little nervous, like she wasn't sure how I would react to my caller. I sighed and pressed the phone to my ear.

"Hello. This isn't really the best time…" I began.

"Rose? Is that you?" came a familiar voice.

I couldn't believe my ears. It was my mother. I could hear the washing machine in the kitchen going and rain pounding against the window. How the heck was I talking to my mother, in a parallel universe? What had Martha done to sort it out? I thought UNIT must be behind it or something.

"Rose? Is Daisy with you?" came another voice on the phone. My dad.

"Not right now." I replied. I didn't want to worry them.

"We heard what happened Rose." Mum sighed.

"You…know?" I couldn't believe it.

"UNIT filled us in. The Doctor disappearing, Daisy finding you, somehow the pair of you travelling through the void." She paused, "Even some infection."

I couldn't cry any more, but my voice was barely a whisper. "It's all my fault. I shouldn't have dragged her in to this."

"She's like you Rose. You couldn't have stopped her if you tried." Mum actually seemed to chuckle slightly, "I suppose that's my stubborn genes rubbing off on you."

"The point is." It was Dad now, "You underestimate your sister." He paused. "Ebony told us once. 'You can shout and scream at her, blame her for all your troubles, send her away and say you wish you never saw her again…'" he was letting my mother finish the thought.

"'Even treat her like dirt and turn people against her. But when you need her… She always comes back. Hell or high water, she _always comes back_. So don't you worry Rosie."

Ebony was our neighbour. She had been Daisy's best friend since they went to play school together. She always came back. I could believe that. The whole world might get messed up, but that was something I could cling on to. It just made me realise even more that I had to rescue my sister. Get out of here with the others and save Daisy. I looked around at everyone uniting for the same cause. Then jumped a mile.

My neck was suddenly hot. I fumbled to pick up my necklace, Daisy's necklace, and stared as a neat white stone appeared on the side of the seven others. Where had that come from? We now had every crystal save one. I blinked in amazement as they let off a low hum. The different colours suddenly shot narrow beams upwards, knitting together in front of me. They slowly expanding until they formed…The Doctor! He stood there with his hands in his pockets, grinning. Finally a bright spark in the midst of this horrible nightmare. He winked at me and I ran forward, but he held up his hands to stop me.

"Not quite there yet I'm afraid Rose. But I thought you might need a bit of a hand."

The Doctor, my Doctor. No, our Doctor. He looked around at all of us and eventually spotted Blake. His face lit up like they knew each other. Like they were old friends. I think they were.

"Blake! Good to see you!" exclaimed The Doctor. "Your idea really took off huh?"

"Doctor. It's been a while." replied Blake with just a hint of warmness. "Got yourself in a bit of a pickle."

The Doctor ran his hands through his hair, embarrassed, "Yea. You could say that. But anyway, moving on. Field trip today, right?"

* * *

It wasn't so bad…even if I was here through bad circumstances. Periculum had cheated. I knew he had. But I hadn't let him win. Rose and the others were safely back at the academy. There was no point in covering up now. It was hot in here, so I was just wearing my vest-top and a skirt. There were patches of metal all over my body and I looked hideous. At least there was no-one around to see me.

I stared out of my window. My room was dark and dull as the rest of this place, although they had at least tried to make me a little more comfortable. The black metal floor was covered by a soft white rug and although my door remained locked (until I was ready apparently) the view was some what interesting. I saw out of my window the night sky overhead and below I could watch Periculum's army train. It was actually strangely interesting. I'd picked up a few things already.

My heart went out to all of them. I had seen how the virus worked. Everything that was metal now had once been a living being, with thoughts and feelings, families and memories. Even Periculum. They say kidnap victims end up feeling sympathy for their kidnappers. Was that what I was doing?

Granted, they weren't exactly the kind of people who went out really looking for trouble, believe it or not. They were hired hands. But they'd threatened to blow up 4 billion people! So why didn't I hate them more? Because I was becoming one of them and I was trying not to be so miserable?

Chief had been surprisingly companiable. He was the one assigned to look after me, brought me food, took me out to walk around a bit. It was weird when he did though. They really were treating me like a queen or something, bowing and scraping and giving me things, not the kind of thing I was used to. I didn't really like being made a fuss of. I never had. Even when I broke my wrist when I was younger, and my ankle three years later.

There was a knock at my door. I glanced at the clock on the wall, 4 o'clock. Walkies. I smiled slightly, it was rather like being a favourite pet here. Must be Chief outside. I turned around as the door clicked open. Yes, definitely Chief. I had kept trying to press him about his life before this life. But either he couldn't remember or he didn't want to.

"Miss Daisy. Training time." He told me politely.

I had no idea how long I had been here now, or if time passed differently, but now I could do self defence and my weird little energy blast problem? It was solved. Periculum had told me that a mixture of corrupt DNA and well, even more corrupt DNA had unlocked parts of my brain normal people didn't ever use. You heard even in my world, in my time, about things like telekinesis and psychic research. This was that, just a few millennia more advanced. All brain waves and crazy science.

I nodded and walked over.

As we slowly wandered along from my room slash cell to the courtyard, people nodded to me and greeted me. I realised as I got further and further away from everything here that was mine, not much, and all in one place, I started forgetting things. My early days with Rose. Birthdays with mum and dad, the little jokes and conversations I shared with the others. All I could think about was my patterns and targets.

The set up was normal. I had protested against Periculum pitting me against other soldiers. Instead there were just targets, moving and none. I never knew what pattern had been set up. I just had to react to it. I closed off my mind and blocked out all thoughts and everything. I had an audience, I had to perform. A metal dummy charged at me and I cut it down with a kick, another came up behind me at the same time and I elbowed it away.

I felt like a machine, mindlessly kicking and punching. I suddenly felt a stitch in my side and a searing pain in my head. White dots swam in front of my eyes and I felt like I was turning inside out. It was unbearable. The spectators, including Periculum and Chief stared in astonishment.

"I think she's about ready to meet the boss?" Periculum's voice sounded tinny and distant.

"Help me!" I cried, but nothing came out. My last thought was that photograph.

Then I blacked out.

* * *

Some round the side, some round the back, Martha, Donna, Jack, Sarah-Jane, The Doctor and me, the front. I still couldn't believe he was here. I didn't know whether to be relieved or furious. He'd sure taken his time showing up, but he had showed up. Letum Curia. Here we were. Not a place I wanted to be back at. At least we had been saved the sand bath this time. We weren't directly in the palace as we had been before. We were outside it. More under it really, in what I imagine was a moat before it dried up. It was cold as anything and I shivered.

"Now what do we do?" asked Donna in a whisper, "It's not like they'll just let us waltz in for a cup of tea!"

"They probably already know we're here actually." corrected The Doctor. "Most likely expecting us."

"So, what's the plan?" queried Martha. "Let the troops lay siege to the castle and find Daisy?"

"The damsel in distress?" Donna rolled her eyes, "Very fairytale."

"Complete with killing machines in shining armour." muttered Jack.

"We could just find the antidote." mentioned Sarah-Jane lightly.

"Sarah-Jane, you read my mind." The Doctor grinned.

"We'll have ample distraction." agreed Martha.

I could see Donna didn't much like the whole prospect of more soldiers, fighting and losses. She was the most sensitive of all of us. A lot of her rashness and annoyance was a cover. You could tell that from the first time you met her. But she was strong. I was glad to have her on my side. Her and the others. Weird combination that we were. I was more nervous than the Doctor. He was non-corporeal. He couldn't be shot. Jack couldn't die. It was Martha, Sarah-Jane, Donna and myself that I was worried about.

"OK troops. Allons-y!"

It was so great to have him back. I thought it would have more of an impact, we hadn't seen each other for nearly two years, but he just went straight in to business. He had practically ignored me the whole time. Then I realised how selfish I was sounding, my baby sister was held prisoner somewhere here. The Doctor started shuffling further down the empty moat and I shuddered as he found what he was looking for. Old, rusty iron bars, covering what would have been some kind of drain.

"I'm a little sonically challenged at the moment. Sarah-Jane, would you do the honours?" requested The Doctor.

Sarah-Jane was happy to do so. Within minutes the cover was off and we were inspecting the long dark hole in the wall, barely big enough for us to crawl through. But we had to do what we had to do. About half a mile down we were all stiff and wanting to straighten up.

"I'm getting too old for this." sighed Sarah-Jane.

"You're never too old!" rebuked the Doctor with a smile.

"All right for you. You can stand up and not get your head taken off." muttered Donna.

"True. But it's not a pleasant experience, my body being in three different places."

"Like a twisted magic trick." piped up Martha.

Despite everyone's cheerful exterior, I was really worried. The Doctor was only ever this happy and upbeat when things were really wrong. It was how he tried to hide big trouble from us. You got used to it after a while and though all things seemed to be looking up, I got a certain sword of Damocles sense hanging over us. It was unnerving. I think we travelled about an hour before finally seeing light at the end of a filthy, stinking, crowded tunnel.

Oh how I wanted to be back in there when we clambered out. Because as we touched down, in a basement, how cliché was that, we were surrounded by enough lovely soldiers to have one each to ourselves. The Doctor wasn't at all bothered. Jack wasn't quite so careless, but the lances thoroughly scared the rest of us. Within minutes, Martha, Jack and Sarah-Jane all reacted, holding out their weapons. Sonic waves to intercept the nervous systems, or whatever powered the soldiers and a laser gun to dispose of the lances. We were not being dragged away without a fight again.

I could see The Doctor thoroughly disapproved of our arsenal, but he didn't get much of a say. He wasn't fighting for his life. _We_ were fighting for his life. He hadn't seemed too grateful for it either. I forgot how much he had annoyed me sometimes. Looking back with rose tinted glasses.

"We have to track down that antidote." reminded Martha.

"But where do we start looking?!" pointed out Donna.

"Maybe somewhere there aren't guards?" suggested Sarah-Jane.

I was about to answer when I realised this wasn't working. The soldiers had holes and burns, but they just kept on coming, like there was nothing alive in there. I had a horrible feeling I was right on the money. I was suddenly grabbed from behind and a hand was clamped over my mouth to stop a scream, the soldier that got me was missing an eye. It scared the hell out of me and I closed my eyes and looked away. The sight was no better. Every one of us had been caught, except The Doctor and he was unable to do _anything_. Not even he could talk us out of this one. I don't think there was enough humanity left. It was worse than Cybermen.

"Oh, good, you're finally here." My blood ran cold. It was King Periculum.

I made myself look up and at him, although my shoulders were held painfully behind my back. The others were doing the same, whilst simultaneously trying to struggle away. I wondered with horror what had happened to the others. The soldiers and those three kids.

"There's really no point in doing that by the way." He noted as he watched Jack use all his strength to try and reclaim his own arms. He looked at all of us. "Don't worry, you're little friends are fine. You amassed yourself quite a following, Doctor."

He turned to our hologram-leader, who looked livid. He was furious about the situation and seething that he couldn't do anything to amend it except talk. He rounded on Periculum, who looked more mildly amused than scared. I was personally wondering about Chief. Yet really didn't want to know the answer.

"This is going above and beyond! You're just puppets! Tied to strings being controlled by everything but you!" The Doctor spat.

"On the contrary, Doctor." replied Periculum. "We're doing what we're paid to do. If we don't get enough, we simply stop. As for above and beyond, hardly. I have to say, I admire the courage and determination your little band have shown, but we simply can't allow them to succeed."

"Why Daisy?!" I cried, "Why my sister?!"

"You really don't know?" Periculum looked genuinely surprised. "But of course, you wouldn't. The pair of you are strangers." Now that hurt. "That girl is a remarkable specimen. The finest I've ever seen. Her courage, bravery, intelligence. Perfect material. It knows no bounds. Unfortunately, neither did her humanity."

Did? Why was he talking in past tense? Now I was scared, really scared, and by the look on the faces of the others, so were they. None more so than The Doctor. He looked fuming and defiant, but I could read in his eyes so much more than that. Periculum seemed oblivious to us.

"When I first saw her, I had to have her. Do you really think you could have gotten this far without her?" He turned to Jack, "You, with your 'superior intelligence'." He stared at Martha, "With your army?" Sarah-Jane was next, "Your experience?" Donna looked away, "Your will." Periculum glanced at me, "Your connections?" He smirked. "You spend so much time thinking about the big picture that you miss the details. The little things, finishing touches. Not her. The little quirks and shared jokes that brought you together to actually find this Doctor of yours, the empathy and sympathy of every living thing that took you to all the right places. That was Daisy."

He said her name with such fondness. I think he actually did honest to god love her. That was the scariest realisation of them all.

"She even realised that to remove the big obstacle it would take such a small thing. Her own life." He regarded us, "But of course, you threw that all away. But as you're here. You might as well partake in the entertainment." He clicked his fingers and we were held tighter. "To the Great Hall."

The Great Hall was just like you saw in old houses and castles that you visited back home, National Trust and English Heritage. Of course the walls and floors were black metal, but the tables and chairs were actually wood. They were currently along one side, whilst what looked like some kind of gladiator match was going on. Three soldiers against one, going all out, using what they could, but not a thing dented their opponent. He was legendary, untouchable. One foul swoop and all three were down.

The winning soldier was different, made of a pure gold-colour. Or perhaps that was just the covering. It had boots on, and extra armour, ornately carved and embedded with tiny jewels that glittered in the light. Even a helmet like knights of old. I think it must have been Chief. It explained his absence. He bowed to the fallen opponents, and the thousands of others barricaded one side. A lot of which I recognised as ours. Shackled. Then he turned and looked up on the high platform.

On the platform were four seats. The people in them were humanoid in shape but you couldn't see any features. They were covered by thick dark blue robes, hoods up. They clapped and the gladiator and he bowed again. Entertainment. Barbaric. Periculum turned to The Doctor, who for lack of anything better to do, had followed us. He could search out the antidote, but he couldn't hold it and bring it to us.

"I believe you've met." Periculum greeted mockingly cheerfully. "Doctor. Friends. Meet my lieges, the Inanis."

"Oh we're well acquainted." growled The Doctor.

The four Inanis immediately shot up and their hoods fell down. They did look human, but like very old humans, and they were grey. Hair and skin, a sickly, dead grey. Animal-like red eyes focused on The Doctor.

"What are _you_ doing here?" growled the one on the furthest left. "That's impossible."

"Not impossible. Just unlikely."

"I wouldn't worry my liege." Smooth-talked Periculum. "He's nothing. Just an image. No chance of getting him back. He can't even open a door. He simply exists like a photograph would. Until it gets old and forgotten, eventually turning to dust." Periculum seemed to like that description.

"How do you know?!" growled the Inanis second from left.

"Because I've stopped any chance of that ever happening. The only people who can do anything are standing in front of you. Prisoners. On my honour, I swear there's nothing they can do."

"You certainly seem very confident." Furthest right said mildly.

"He shouldn't be! We'll get him back! Just you wait!" argued Donna.

"We didn't come all this way just to give up now." backed up Jack.

The second right Inanis looked at The Doctor. "They really are rather vocal Doctor. But you know as well as I do, it's all in vain."

"Of course it's not!" protested Martha.

"Foolish child. Whatever chance he thought he had. It's lost now." Far left Inanis scolded.

The look in The Doctor's eyes seemed to tell me, that the Inanis were dead on. It must have told Periculum too, because he grinned from ear to ear, and his metal army burst in to raucous applause and shouting as The Doctor stood alone, in front of us, below them. Like a matched pair without it's partner.

"This calls for a celebration." Periculum turned to us, "You still want your girl back? Even though your cause is lost?"

"It's not lost!" I argued, but even I realised my voice was weak.

"I'll make you a deal." Periculum grinned.

"I am so sick of hearing that." Murmured Donna.

"If you can defeat my champion, we'll give her to you. But remember you'll never recover him." He looked pointedly at The Doctor.

"With you holding us and no weapons?" Jack rebuked sharply, "That's even below you."

"Who said you'd have no weapons?"

We were suddenly released and we stumbled forward. Surely this was nothing but suicide, but I'd try anything to get Daisy back, anything. Weapons were pushed in to our hands and we were pushed in to the arena, sealed off by ropes. There was a scuffle in the section that held out back up, and four people were pushed forward. It was Blake, Grace, Hal and Alex. They were armed up too and yanked across to join us.

"I'm sorry we let you down." said Blake solemnly.

"They knew our every move!" Alex was stricken. "Always a step ahead of us!"

"Like they had a crystal ball or something." grunted Hal.

"Oh, that's because we did." Periculum smiled, and then nodded towards the silent champion. "There's more than one way to be the best." He shrugged, "So, ready to die trying?" he gave a wicked grin.

"We won't die. There's nine of us and one of him!" declared Donna, a lot more confident sounding than she seemed.

"Ok then. Fight to the death it is. You don't want to give in?" he offered. He must have been scared we'd win.

"No chance." decided Jack, and we all agreed, no matter how terrified we were.

"Well, can't say I'm not reasonable."

It was then that I suddenly saw something I really didn't want to see. Keeping control, at the front of everyone who was being held back, it was Chief. I was frozen stiff and slowly turned to face our opponent. He removed his helmet. The eyes, the skin, the body, everything was gold. Even the hair was very fine wire. But I knew that plait. I'd known it for sixteen years.

A flash of purple light knocked us all to our feet, and the fight to the death began.


	15. Sacrosanct

Well, ladies and gentlemen and variations there of. This is it. The finally chapter of my Companion Chronicles. Thank you so much for reading til now, I really appreciate it! I hope you enjoy reading this final chapter and please let me know what you think of my series as a whole :). I hope to see you in my other projects! Take care, and thanks again.

Loki x

PS: This chapters is written Daisy - The Doctor - Daisy

* * *

Sacrosanct

Who did they think they were? Stupid little humans. I had seen them come in with my own eyes, whilst I was fighting the trainees. I had no idea what they were going on about, kidnappings and disappearances. I just wanted to fight, to train, to be the best. Well, I was the best. But I wanted to be better than that. I had heard the Inanis talking. They were thinking of hiring me themselves, for special cases. I liked that thought. The power it would wield, keeping the whole of time and space in check. Some people might have thought of the job as an assassin. I thought of it as a vigilante, a protector.

I was unstoppable. I had to stop myself from laughing as they dared to take me on, thinking mere numbers would make up for their lack of skill. But laughing wouldn't look good, not for my potential employers. The blonde girl stared at me, absolutely terrified. She seemed to know she was about to die. As I fixed on her eyes I felt a sudden pull, deep inside of me. I instantly snatched them away, putting my helmet back on. I didn't like the way looking at her made me feel.

The strongest man there, what I had seen in my mind told me so, was merely a ghost, clinging on for dear life. Pointless. Another person might have pitied him. But he disgusted me. I had no sympathy for people who thought 'oh woe is me, how horrible my life is'. That look in his eyes, that glint. That's what it said to me. So selfish, thinking about nothing but himself. It was people like that I wanted to destroy.

"Daisy! Can't you hear me?! Don't you understand?" it was the blonde girl.

Daisy, who was this Daisy? The name rang a bell. Maybe my king had mentioned her to me in passing. I never really paid attention during our encounters. These people weren't even trying. They aimed and fired, but their hearts weren't in it. They couldn't bear to look at me. I could see them shake, their eyes full of fear every time they tried to hit me and it just made me angrier. Normally all I needed was myself to win these battles. My 'unique abilities' as Periculum told me I just used to read people, find out their plans. It was only when I was livid that I used them as an assault.

"Stop talking. You're not even trying. It's pathetic!" I shot at her.

I simply held out my hand and a dart flew towards her. Perfect hit, got her in the chest. Her eyes widened in surprise, and must to my distaste; she started crying as she fell. She wouldn't last long. I could sense her trying to fight back, struggle against the darkness that enveloped her. Courage gained some respect, even from me. It was often all people had.

"Rose!" it was the red-haired woman. She had been useless, just circling around with nowhere to go. She glared at me, "How could you do that?! How could you do that to her?!"

I gave a slight smirk as she threw accusations at me, telling me I was a monster. Then she looked at me strangely, focusing on that band around my wrist, with it's black diamond, and she too started fighting back tears. Ugh. Weakness annoyed me. She had promise too.

"Let it lie woman. There's no room here for vulnerability. You've got a fighting spirit. You could do well with us."

"I would never, never join you!" cried the woman.

I sighed and rolled my eyes. Well, I'd given her a chance. That was pleasant of me. A little more pleasant than I would like. She ran over, kneeling by her friend, trying to shake her, wake her up, and get some kind of response. I shook my head in despair. What a waste. Another dart. She went down, slumped across her friend.

Something in the air changed. The soldier-man, with the biggest weapons, his eyes went cold, lost all feeling. The old woman looked at me, just a look, a simple glance, and something in her reformed as well. She looked around at the others.

"We have to forget." said the old woman quietly. "She told us to. It's what she would want."

"They might still be alive! We'll get everyone back." The small woman. She was very optimistic, determined.

All of a sudden, I was assaulted on all sides. Heat shot through my body, just above my knee. I was stunned, it actually hurt. A neat round hole, from a laser bullet. It was the soldier man. The mountain of a man ran forward and grabbed me around the waist, the momentum threw me backwards and we crashed to the floor. I snarled, enraged, and with my arm knocked him clean across the arena. The small woman hurried to him, checking pulses and response.

"He's not dead!" she told the others. "Come on, we can do this!"

They took full advantage as I tried to right myself. Bangs and burns spread through my body. I grinned at them, finally, now things would get more interesting. The woman who seemed to be some kind of medic was aiming a laser or something at me, but her hands were shaking as she did. She wouldn't fire. I held my hand out, she was hit and down.

It went on for a while. I have to admire their courage, after they went in to the zone. I could see they saw me as I saw them, obstructions to be overcome. Things seemed to move in slow motion; first I cut down the old woman with nothing but a backhand, then the scrawny girl and her friend. The Inanis were loving this, they clapped and cheered. King Periculum was pleased with me. He kept shooting a look at the man they called The Doctor. He was stricken, absolutely stricken.

I stopped for a breath, astounded that I had to do so. The only competition I had left was the soldier man and the shortest boy, Alex he seemed to be called. So much strength in such a lowly form was quite amiable. He was driven, stubborn, gritting his teeth. It was like he had a personal vendetta against me, and I couldn't help but laugh.

"What's so funny?!" It was the man who wasn't a man. He rounded on me and I just looked him up and down. "You think killing everyone that cares about you is funny?!"

I stared at him. What on earth was he going on about? "Are you mad?" I looked around. The Inanis, Chief, Periculum, they were all there. "Everyone's perfectly fine."

"Listen to me. Daisy, I know you're still in there somewhere!" insisted this man.

"Daisy, who's Daisy?" I asked, getting bored.

"Just listen! There's no turning back from something like this! If you stop, we can save them, all of them, together!"

"Save who?" I was quite perplexed. No-one I knew needed saving.

Oh, sneaky. I saw in the corner of my eye, soldier man creeping up on me, weapon aimed. I spun around as he tried to shoot me in the chest, ducking under it and kicking him across the arena. He landed hard, with a solid smack. I smiled, maybe we could use him.

"I'm so sorry…"

It was the boy's voice. I frowned and turned around to face him, just in time for a artistically cut blade to slip in through my armour, I smirked, nothing could get through me…but this did, it went straight through the armour, and me. He pulled it out quickly and I stared at him, wide-eyed with shock. He was crying.

"Alex!!" shrieked The Doctor man. "Why did you do that?! We could have saved her!"

"That's what I'm _doing_!" argued Alex. "The antidote is on the blade! It was the only way passed the armour!"

* * *

I stared at Alex in disbelief. How had he worked that one out? I saw Daisy sink to her knees and I ran forward to catch her, but she fell right through me and landed in Alex's arms instead. Her helmet fell off, clattering to the ground. It was really her underneath all that. Flesh her. Right now it just looked like she was wearing a turtle-necked gold body suit. Everyone stopped clapping and cheering. You could hear a pin drop. Even Periculum looked uncharacteristically crushed.

"It should cure her in a few seconds." said Alex, looking shocked.

"Then…why has it stopped working?" I said quietly.

I was wrong. It had only half stopped. I looked down in horror, neatly just below the ribs, a straight gash was trickling…blood. Alex looked like he might have passed out.

"Oh, no! God no!"

Something quite amazing happened then. Like something building up, about to burst, heat spread through Daisy's body and she started glowing, a strange kind of purplish light that I recognised all too well. I stopped myself backing away from the glow that usually meant something bad. Then there was a bright flash, filling the whole room, purple shockwaves, more like ripples of water, spread out across the Great Hall. I had no idea what was happening, for once.

Her DNA must have been very corrupt. It seemed to leak out and I watched in astonishment as everywhere a beam of soft light touched, metal melted off people and ran down, revealing skin and bone, muscles and colour. People were getting themselves back. Blonde, redheads, brunettes. Tall, short, skinny, stout. Their metal coats just fell away. She was passing on the antidote. I had no idea how, latent psychic energy? But it seemed so much more than that.

"I think…I think they're nanogenes." stuttered Alex.

In no time a lot of very confused people of all species and genders was standing in the hall. None more astounded than…Periculum. Now a tall, broad-shouldered, blonde-haired man. In front of the masses was Chief, tall, slim, black hair…I spun on my heel hopefully and sure enough, when the metal soldiers had been cured of their ailments, my friends slowly started twitching and moving, groaning and stretching. They picked themselves up, Hal and Grace struggled to their feet, and then helped up Blake. Donna and Rose supported each other and stood, Martha helped up Sarah-Jane and they both leant a hand to Jack.

It was a miracle. I'm sure there had to be some kind of scientific explanation, but for once I didn't want to find it out. I'd take miracles where they came. The hall filled with excited chatter and murmuring. The Inanis were incredulous, I could tell from their faces.

They rounded up some kind of energy bolts and threw them out in to the crowd, hither and thither. But they just rebounded off a kind of shield and they roared with anger, ducking and staring, their eyes full of menace. Then I suddenly remembered, Daisy! I hurried over to her, but Alex was unmoving, numb.

"She's…going cold…" he croaked.

No, no, no. We couldn't lose her. Not now. Not now! Not after everything! The Inanis cackled as they saw the sorry state that the poor girl was in. Her plait fell behind her, laced with tiny bits of gold. Her skin was definitely skin, but it was pale. Her t-shirt was ripped across one shoulder, her jeans had gashes in them and her jacket was being stained crimson.

"What's happening?! This should have worked! Why isn't it working?!" cried Alex. "Why won't they heal _her_?!"

I had forgotten until then, the presence of anyone else. The crowd had fallen silent but a rush of wind and footsteps alerted me to the presence of someone by my shoulder. It was Rose. On my other side was Donna; behind them were Jack, Martha and Sarah-Jane. Rose didn't seem to notice I existed and she knelt over her sister, brushing her hair behind her ear.

"Daisy, Daisy? Can you hear me?" she whispered.

Alex sacrificed his position so Rose could hold the girl, and faded back in to the crowd, next to Grace and Hal. Blake put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and squeezed it.

"No reason for us to hang around." said the head Inanis. "The universe always rights itself, no matter what upsets the balance."

"What do you mean!?" I roared, "How is this _right_?!"

"As long as she doesn't come back, neither can you." He smirked. "But we'll be back. Oh, we'll be back."

They disappeared. They'd wreaked all this havoc, and they had just high-tailed it. I was furious. The purple light faded and everything was back to normal. As normal as it could be. Rose was kneeling down by Daisy, rocking her, hugging her, whispering to her. The crowd parted, making way for Periculum and Chief. They didn't come too near us, but stood in clear view of Rose and Daisy as my other friends cried and tried to comfort each other. I thought he was going to fly in to a rage, but his arrogance had seeped out of him with his metal shell. Instead, he took off his crown and walked forward, placing it next to Daisy. He reached out to touch her face, but stopped and pulled back. Chief went ahead of him, laying a sword next to the crown.

"I never wanted this to really happen." whispered Periculum. "I don't know how I'll ever forgive myself."

He picked up the sword and passed it to a shocked Rose, then knelt in front of her, removing his cloak. She stared at him long and hard. Before throwing it aside and glaring at him.

"If I kill you, what did my sister die for?" her voice was painfully quiet.

"She saved us. All of us." It was Chief.

He seemed to hold so much more authority than his liege now. A quiet authority, peaceful, that I admired. He placed a hand on Periculum's shoulder as his king stood up, astounded. All he'd known for…he couldn't remember anything else but fighting and ruling. Now the closest relative of a girl he'd killed, was letting him go? I've never respected Rose more.

"We'll see to it that everyone gets back safe and well to home and families." He looked at Daisy and I recognised an affection I hadn't spotted before. Daisy seemed to have that effect on people. "And we'll do it in her name."

After some co-operation arrangements were made and ever so slowly the Great Hall cleared of former soldiers, UNIT and the people called from Blake's school all left. Hal, Grace and Blake began to walk away, and realised Alex wasn't with them. He was stood their, staring.

"Alex. Come on lad." said Blake kindly.

Alex walked forward to us and met Rose's gaze. He'd made a mistake and he knew it, he blamed himself, though it wasn't his fault. "I don't think you'll believe me Miss Tyler. But I loved her. I really did." He walked forward and placed a single yellow tulip, with purple stripes, by her side.

He looked around at all of us once more, and went to join the others as they all teleported out. Rose watched them leave. It was just us once again me and my friends. All we ever could be.

"She was one hell of a girl." sighed Jack. "I don't blame him."

Rose looked up. I was suddenly reminded of a funeral, where people stepped forward to say a few words about the loved one they had just lost. Sarah-Jane was struggling to keep her voice under control.

"She would listen to me when no-one else was around. She knew all about my old age problems, my son and his friends. She never said anything, just heard me out." She recalled with a slight smile. "She kept me going."

"We used to meet each other in the middle of the night when we couldn't sleep." reminisced Martha. "We'd sit at the TARDIS doors and watch the universe go by." she smiled a little, though her voice was cracking. "She told me to have blue and silver for my wedding. Because it was classy. Like me…and she wanted to be a bridesmaid." they all shared a little laugh.

"I almost lost it a million times." mused Donna, "Wandering around with people that had guns and sonics, professional training, technology, insider alien info. I had nothing to bring to the table; she always said neither did she. But she also said I could talk anyone out of a tight spot or in to submission, that was my skill." Donna looked down, "Always cheered me up."

"I told her everything about myself and my family. I even told her a lot of things that would probably get me thrown out of Torchwood and her kept under 24 hour surveillance. Or upgraded to secret agent of something. But I knew I could trust her. She never let anything slip." Jack looked down. "Few years time, I reckon she could have been my boss."

We all stopped as Rose spoke. "She brought me in out of the rain. Whenever I would get lost, she found me. Whenever I had problems, she was always there. Like a second mother. She saved my life in more ways than one."

My god I had missed a lot. I didn't tell them what she had done for me. It was all she had done for them and more. She risked life and limb for me and she didn't even know me. It was like Periculum had said. We'd only been looking at the big picture. We missed the details, the behind-the-scenes. The jokes, the tears, the friendship and love.

"Why didn't it work?" I heard Donna whisper to Martha, out of Rose's hearing. "Why didn't the nanogenes find her, heal her?"

"It's like…they couldn't see her." agreed Martha solemnly. They both had tear streaks down their cheeks.

I surveyed the girl once more and froze as my eyes latched on to something. No. Couldn't be…could it? They all stared at me as I went right on threw them and stood over Rose and Daisy. I knew they were all wondering what I was doing. I whispered to Rose and she hesitated before nodding. Reluctantly, she didn't want to let go of Daisy, she took off her necklace and returned it to her sister. The others wondered what I was doing as I knelt down beside her. It was Martha that had given me the idea. Another detail. I didn't know if it would work. I wasn't really here, but I had to try.

I focused my mind and focused on Daisy. Her mind was a closed door, locked and bolted, cold and fading. I kept trying to push my way in. Slightly, inch by inch, the door opened. I was looking for something as her memories, her personality, her essence flowed through me. It was a beautiful bright presence, warm and comforting. It was just like the girl herself. The corners of my own mind, places and people I had locked away reached out to touch the light again, whenever I felt like I was drowning I was pulled out and along by this energy.

I opened doors both sides, bringing things back to life. It was a rush and I almost lost myself. No secrets between her mind and mine now. I didn't want to, it felt such a relief getting everything off my chest sharing it with someone, anyone, that I never wanted to stop, but I pulled away.

Back in the real world I felt like I had just stepped out of a warm shower. I stared hard at the lifeless form of Daisy, and the chain around her neck light up, all different colours. Then I focused on her wrist. The bracelet I had given her to suppress the extra brainwaves. The stone on it disappeared, and a small round gem appeared on her necklace. There were nine of them now.

With a gasp and in perfect timing, I fell down and Daisy sat up. I could feel the floor underneath my knees. I could feel the cold of the hall, I could feel the warmth of Daisy's arm next to my hand, and I could smell Rose's perfume. Then I did something I have wanted to do for a very, very long time.

* * *

He hugged me. I had no idea what was going on, I felt like I had just woken up after a long sleep, but I was rested, peaceful. He grabbed a hold of me and I clung to him, that's all I needed to know. The Doctor was back. He was back; he was solid next to me. I don't know how long I sat like that. I could feel the man's tears on my shoulder and his got the same treatment. I felt like something in me had been missing and now I had found it. It was amazing; a kind of buzzing around my system, glints of everyone in that hall with me flowed through me.

"Oh my god. Don't ever scare me like that again!" Rose flung her arms around me.

Taking it as a cue, I was suddenly swarmed by everyone else fighting to get close enough to hug me, I could sense them, parts of them that I hadn't physically felt before. Jack's hidden, emotional side, Martha's intelligence and desire to help, Sarah-Jane's motherly love for everyone and everything, Donna's compassion and Rose's courage. Like they were a part of me now. I think they were.

Using the handy little teleport devices they had been given by Blake, we headed back to the school to a hero's welcome. There was flowers and cake, we were bombarded by fans and congratulated by fully fledged Intergalactic Police Officers, UNIT members, Torchwood and thousands of people I didn't even know, thanking us for bringing back their loved ones safe and sound. It was a little overwhelming. When we had had a minute to ourselves, The Doctor had explained that because time and space was weird and never properly investigated the parts of him had somehow become parts of me too. The nanogenes hadn't found me because I only existed as much as he did. So we were kind of like each other, to a degree. Entwined. As well as that, I still had my strange little gift apparently. But I should be able to control it now. I hoped.

"So, you're stuck with me then." I grinned, "Well, part of me anyway."

"That's no bad thing. You know things about me now that warrant some kind of surveillance." He winked. "Thank you Daisy. Thank you for everything."

Another person appeared behind us, not daring to encroach. The Doctor saw who it was before me and smiled slightly. He ruffled my hair and excused himself as Alex came out on to the balcony. He didn't meet my eye, which gave me a chance to finally give him a once over. I was seeing him in a whole new light now. He had killed me to save me. That took guts.

"Daisy, I…I…I…" he stammered.

I threw him a bone. "I know."

I kissed him and at first he was surprised, but then he responded and held my hands. What a weird way to meet someone this had been. Talk about a round about route. But I was glad of my little detour.

"You know I'm not from here." I said finally.

"I know." He nodded.

"But find me. Somewhere, some time."

"I promise."

It was strange. The space ship that had seemed to big and scary to me at first was now full to bursting with all of us in it. One by one we went on a round trip, taking people back to where they belonged. First was Sarah-Jane, she was anxious about her son.

"Thanks for listening to me Daisy."

"Thanks for looking after me Sarah-Jane. Say hello to your son and his friends for me." I requested.

"Naturally." She looked at The Doctor. "Come and meet my son some time."

"I'd love to. Take care Sarah-Jane."

The others said their goodbyes and she was out of the door. Next stop was Cardiff, Jack's team would be furious that he had gone without warning again, as he told us.

"If you ever find yourself in need of a job." He offered, even though we knew I probably wouldn't be able to take it. "Take care Daisy."

"You too Jack. It's been fun." He kissed me on both cheeks. Very gentlemanly.

"Doctor. Drop by any time." He winked.

"I'll remember to not do that." answered The Doctor and Jack grinned.

Things were seeming more and more empty and I felt it way deep down, which was horrible really, but I decided to cling on to the good memories I had, instead of never seeing these people again. I'd met them, that was something.

"Remember Miss Martha, blue and silver!" I instructed.

She laughed and hugged me, "I'll think of you whenever I look at my album Miss Daisy." She turned to The Doctor. "Call me."

"I will." The Doctor grinned.

It was just The Doctor, Donna, Rose and me now. The main thing was getting us back to where we had come from. We figured the best solution was to go back to where we had come through the first time. It turned out to be a good solution. Almost as soon as we stepped out of the door, I felt a strange pull.

"I guess, this is us." Rose sounded as reluctant as me to leave.

"I guess it is." The Doctor agreed.

"I hate goodbyes." sighed Donna.

"Me too. But who knows what the cosmos'll do if we stay." I reminded her gently.

"She has a good point." Rose said quietly.

Donna and I simultaneously realised we should give them a moment and walked a little way down the alley. We leaned against the wall, just the two of us. I was glad for a few extra minutes with her. When The Doctor had done whatever he had done, I had seen the future. Or was it the past? I didn't like it, but I couldn't say a word.

"Oh, Donna. Before I forget."

I rummaged around my newly patched jeans, it was a look, and drew out a bottle of nail varnish, the same dark blue as the TARDIS. Donna had seen me wearing it and mentioned that she liked it. I'd also looped the chunky ring of mine she liked around it. I smiled at her and handed it over.

"It's not much. But I hope it brings you a smile."

She smiled at me, "You're a very sweet girl Daisy. I love it. Thank you."

She hugged me and I returned the gesture, although I only smiled to her face. I wanted to remember her. We were soon joined by The Doctor and a tearful Rose, but she wasn't crying. I let Donna go as I felt that pull getting ever so more urgent, however much I tried to get away. The Doctor stood in front of me.

"Well, Daisy. It's been quite something." He smiled.

I hugged him best I could, he was quite a bit taller than me. "Now, don't get erased from time and space again, ok mister? I have my A Levels to worry about!"

"I'll try." He grinned and let me down. "Don't get killed again, ok miss?"

"I'll try." I giggled.

"Goodbye Daisy." He said solemnly.  
"Hasta mañana, Doc." I saluted and he gave the slightest grin. It suited him much better than that frown.

"Bye Donna. Take care." Rose hugged the woman.

"You too. It's been great. Sort of."

I took my sister's hand and we stepped backwards. She clung to me tightly, holding it together until the scene around us shifted and we were outside in our garden. I could feel how hard it had been for Rose to say goodbye again even without her shoulders shaking beside me.

The clock struck midnight on the 1st July 2023. _Happy Birthday Daisy _I thought as I held my sister tight. At least she wasn't standing alone this time. She had me. She'd always have me.


End file.
